Our Honey Bees LEFT the Farm 🐝 What Happened!?

One of our big goals this year was to buy bees and get our own honey, so we bought three colonies of bees and moved them all into hives, but I think the hives might be empty now. To fully understand the story, we have to go back in time a little. In early spring this year, we brought home three full colonies of bees, which was super exciting for us because we've always wanted to get our honey straight from our farm. We knew that this would be a challenge, but we were up for it. We had tried and failed with bees in the past, but after quite a few years, we wanted to give it another go. And after some craziness with moving them to the hives... Oh my goodness. Okay, I'm getting stung. It hurts. I know! Can you get me a hairbrush? I still hear them in my hair. And an issue with one of the hives swarming. One of the hives actually swarmed about a week after we put them in their new hives and they ended up in a coil of fencing that was right next to the hives and my dad had to move them to another bee box which was very interesting. We felt pretty confident about them, well at least until now. Hi Maggie. So the other day when I was walking by the hives I noticed that there were literally no bees around them. So I want to investigate a little bit closer today, see if there are any bees there, which I'm kind of starting to doubt that there are, and see if maybe there's some honey left in the hives. I don't know. You are crazy. Yeah, let's go investigate. Okay, we are now where none of the other crazy animals can get to us. The sun is coming out and it is very bright, but this hive is the one that was always doing really good. This one was doing okay. This one not so great because this is the one that split, I think. Or maybe the other way around and that one is from the split and that one never did good. So let's see what we can figure out here. I don't have a bee suit on so hopefully if there are bees in here I don't get swarmed. This is the entrance to the first hive and I do not see one bee. Usually there's a bunch coming in and out at a time and there aren't. And for this one I don't see anything at the moment. I think I see one. Oh wait, there are some in here. No, there's a bunch of bees in there. Oh my gosh, wait. I see hundreds in there, and there's some going in and out of here. What? Was I wrong? Usually there's so much activity. What about this one? It looks pretty abandoned. Yeah, I don't see one bee here. There's some bees. Okay, this is good. This is really good. Rose, hey, what are you doing? Don't get stung. Whoa. Do not jump on the hive. Well, that is actually incredible news knowing that this hive is still alive. I'm guessing because there were bees going in and out of this one that it's good too. I did not see anything, however, in these two hives, so I might try and open them really quick and see what they look like. And if I see a bee, I'm gonna close it right away because I don't want to get attacked. I don't have any protection or anything on to keep me from getting stung. That's really good news. I totally thought that they were all just gone. Okay, this could be a really bad Please pray for me. Okay. Okay. All I see is dead bees. They're like squashed around the edges of this. I can't even lift this frame. It's like stuck with beeswax. There's nothing in there. Not one bee. No honey either. At least in this top box. Maybe they left and took it with them? Okay. Dad will know how to look at this better and figure out what happened here. But yeah, there's no bees. There's definitely a mess down in there though. That's crazy. Look at all that. That's so weird. Okay, yeah, we're just gonna put this back. I find bees so fascinating. It's just crazy. So, the bees in these hives are definitely gone, but these two might still have hope. So there was a set of china that was sitting in our barn for years because mom and dad got it at an auction for a dollar or something and dad recently said that he was gonna take it to the landfill and I was like no don't do that. I want to keep it because it's so pretty. So I have been working on washing them. I already finished all the big plates but I want to show you what what they look like. are so gorgeous. And there's like 12 of these plates or something. They're made by Royal Bohemian Fine China. And when I looked it up, these plates are actually worth six or eight dollars each, which is crazy. So I have been washing them up so that I can save them for my future home and I can have free plates to use that are also really gorgeous. This is what I have left to clean. A bunch of tea cups, a bunch of little tea plates, and two serving bowls. And then there's There's also these Pyrex containers too that have been sitting in the garage for That can also be used So I'm going to get the rest of this cleaned up and wrapped and stored away so that I can use it someday. I think it's too pretty to take to the landfill for sure. Okay, I have no idea when I'm ever going to need to use this many teacups or small plates, but here is all of the rest of the stuff and everything I already washed and wrapped in newspaper is over here. So these are all big plates and these are more small plates. In honor of the bees, I wanted to make something today using honey, so I'm gonna be making mini honey cheesecakes. Never made this recipe before, but it sounds so good. So let's get to baking. First for the cheesecake, we need to make our crust. Now these have to go in the freezer Now we need to make some whipped cream to go while we make in the filling, so I'm gonna take some cream off of our gallon of raw milk. We don't milk any of our cows, we buy raw milk, the filling. because we can't do it all, but it's so nice to be able to just get the cream off of the top of the jars. This is done. Now in a different bowl, I have to add the cream cheese. I'm gonna add all the other ingredients. I'm not really measuring today, just measuring with my heart. This honey is unfortunately not from our bees. We haven't gotten any honey from them, and honey is the only sweetener in the cheesecake mixture, so not too bad. Let me try this. I think it's sweet enough, probably. I think with the graham cracker crust it'll balance it out. Now I have to take I'm going to take and fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture. I just tasted it again. It is not sweet enough. So we're adding some powdered sugar. Sorry. Okay. I really hope these taste good I'm gonna put them in the fridge. They have to cool for a few hours and then So I did a little bit of research to try to understand why the bees are behaving the way they are right now after seeming so active for so long. What I found was that honey bees have completely different behavior in the fall and winter than they do in the spring and summer. When temps drop below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, which they have, the bees stop leaving the hive and basically cluster together and surround the queen to keep her warm, and apparently they're They're able to keep the temperatures around her at 90 plus degrees Fahrenheit, which is actually insane. And when it's really cold, the bees can't even leave the hive without dying. Also, because there's no longer any nectar to collect to make honey, there's no need for them to leave, so they spend time protecting and preserving the honey that they've already made. The queen also stops laying eggs altogether, and the bees that worked during the summer usually pass away from the physical toll of flying so many miles every day. And the bees that stay in the hive throughout the winter are actually special bees that are made to last the winter with bigger bodies. Learning about all this actually blew my mind. I think the bees might just be the coolest animals on our farm. Well, my family ended up getting the flu, and it was really bad, and I was the only person in my family of seven that did not get it, so I spent quite a few days just making food and taking care of the house and making sure everything was alright while everyone was sick, and this banana bread was one of the many things I made. It turned out so good, but it was a really slow, long couple of days. I have found that the more that I make recipes and the more confident I feel, the less I actually measure. I followed a recipe for this super loosely and didn't really measure at all. I just threw stuff together and hoped it would turn out well, especially the streusel topping. I barely followed anything for that, but I find it much more fun and adventurous that way because you never know how it's gonna turn out and you can never make the same thing twice. And this tasted so good. We also enjoyed it with the first fire of the season in our fireplace. The secret behind the scenes takes some effort. Good. Deal. First fire of the year. Here we go. Steaming. Well, my family is starting to slowly recover, which is amazing, and I do have some really exciting news. I have been working for a very, very long time. on a Christmas series for the holidays and because I've been working so hard on that, there probably will not be a video coming out next week so that I can just prepare, but then a video where I announce the Christmas series will be out and then we'll get into the series. It's going to be so much fun. I have thought everything out so much and there will also be a product that I will be selling along with the series that will be kind of interactive, so definitely keep an eye out for that and get excited just like I am. It's going to be so much fun I'm very glad that we still have. We have at least a few bees hanging around here. Now we just gotta see if they can make it through the winter because that is the real test. I hope you enjoyed this video and following along. If you would like to buy one of my farm-themed hoodies or other products, you can go to evelynsfarmco.com. All the products are so cute and they would make incredible Christmas gifts. Definitely subscribe to stick around for the Christmas series coming up. God bless you and I will see you in the next one.