Frances and the Bee

Here it is!  We are just starting to get this year's harvest into jars.  The beauty below is just part of what fell/dripped/was scraped off during de-capping the frames for harvest. It is slightly cloudy-looking just from the tiny particles of wax...and it's delicious! I think it's a touch sweeter than last year's honey, but it does still taste like wildflowers. I also made my first try at honey candy.  Candy making has been a challenge for me in the past, so it was exciting that it turned out.  Isn't the color beautiful?  The only ingredients were honey and butter. They remind me of Werther's, but they have a beautiful, strong, wildflower taste.  The fragrant recipe will be lovely to make in the fall and they should be soothing for winter's dry throats. The photo below is what we're looking at as of late.  The right-most hive is gone and we made the frames available for the bees to eat the last drops of honey off of so we can store them ...

Last weekend, Minnesota weather was fully hot. We have been keeping only an occasional eye on our hives the last couple of weeks, but we decided it was the time to start getting the hives ready for the end of the season.   The hive that is right-most in the photo above is the first one we inspected and evaluated, and you can see a frame from it below. This sporadic and bumpy pattern makes it look like the worker bees are laying eggs.  This is bad because there should be an efficiently-laying queen to make more worker bees.  When a worker or workers start laying eggs, only drones (male bees) are produced, and the hive is doomed because there will be no more workers to stock up honey for the cold season.  This hive will not make it through winter, so we took the honey frames off of the top and set them aside for harvesting.  We also put some of the frames that these girls had started with comb and uncured honey and put them on the center hive, so...

Here's an almost-updated look at the hives. The middle hive, which made it through last winter, got yet another box of frames over the weekend.

It's been a while since the last post, but there have been updates. The hives have been growing and working, and we've been out about once a week to check on them and make sure they have enough frames to build comb on and (*fingers crossed*) fill with honey. The hive that wintered from last year (in the center of the three) is definitely the strongest. The girls in this hive have been filling up frames and the queen is laying a lot of eggs. We know this because we can see the frames are full of bees. We also know they are doing well and working hard because we can see that the frames are being filled with honeycomb and honey. Isn't that brand new, white comb beautiful? The next photo is a look down through the uppermost box into the next. We're looking straight down, seeing the side of the box on the left and a brand new frame on the right, down into the box and frames below where the bees have already made comb that they're working on filling...

We did a big inspection over Memorial Day weekend: the hives are looking strong so far.  We can see that each has a laying queen and is collecting pollen and nectar.  It will be a little while until the "honey flow" starts - when the bees are rapidly build up honey stores and nectar is highly available. Quickly, here are some photos from the time, starting with brave Mr. Bee trimming the grass in front of the hives: The Top Bar hive is looking really good (below) and we added some frames so they have more space to work. Below, you can see some capped honeycomb as well as some cells full of glistening nectar. You can also get a look at some larvae, in the stage before the cell is capped to allow for the rest of the growth: I love this - some comb absolutely packed with pollen! And here you can see the honeybee's main sources of food - pollen and nectar. The pollen is speckled and has different colors because of the different plants it is co...

Hello, again!  We've had a busy first couple of weeks with the new bees.  Our new top bar hive is already looking strong.  You can see the pollen nuggets on the bee returning to the hive in the photo below.  The likely source? Maybe trees, or... Dandelions. They're suddenly blooming all over. We were exploring a patch of them and found one of our girls hard at work. This little bee was very busy pollinating - visiting flower after flower, only stopping for a moment at times. Mr. Bee has already been adding the empty frames to the front of the box, so the queen can continue to lay eggs (her laying pattern is VERY good so far) and the workers can build comb and fill it with pollen and nectar. Our wintered hive is doing pretty well, too.  We're keeping a eye on everything, and as some other beekeepers decide to do with strong hives, we've decided to "split" the hive.  We purchased a new queen, put her in a new box, added some frames of ...

We've definitely been feeling springtime around here. **In Minnesota, it can take a while before you're positive that spring has arrived. It was 75 degrees on Saturday and we have snow in the forecast for this week. Nevertheless, the trees are budding and our surviving hive has workers busy collecting loads of light, buttery yellow, pale green and golden pollen. The main source of pollen this time of year is trees and y ou may remember that pollen is a source of protein for honeybees.  Nectar provides a carbohydrate. We have been feeding the hive sugar syrup and will continue to do so until nectar is fully available in "the wild". You'll notice that the kids weren't with us for Bee Day this year. Although we would have brought them along, and I love for them to see everything, my mom was gracious enough to watch them.  I'll admit it was a little peace of mind to not have the kids AND 40,000+1 bees in the car at the same time. (This is an ap...