Bee Day 2022

Happy Spring?? Minnesota is taking its time to switch over to warm temperatures, and I have some updating to do before I start the Bee Day update.

I genuinely thought I had updated the blog last fall when the last of our hives died. I did not make a post like I thought I had. Although I left off with us treating for mites, we lost all of the remaining bees within weeks of my last post.  It was extremely disappointing after having had such a successful year; all hives survived last winter, we managed the most hives we have ever had at once in a beautiful new location, and we took our highest honey yield. Alas, all the hives succumbed and we didn't winter any. Many people think of beekeeping as being either really scary (being surrounded by 100,000 bees!?) or they think of it as being super idealized (scooping out honey whenever we want). Beekeeping is sometimes intimidating and is certainly beautiful and fascinating, but I want take a moment to remind readers that beekeeping is very humbling. When we think we have something figured out...we don't. Bees are wild and nature is wild. 

We received our two new packages of bees in the "early pickup" at the beginning of April. Since the weather hadn't caught up with our plans and it was snowing that evening. We, as our daughter put it, "had 20,000 guests stay overnight in our basement that night." Little Mr. Bee has been helping a lot with beekeeping lately and he even took a few of the photos on this post! Here he is greeting our new bees:

On day two of having these bees, we decided to install them. The weather was cold and not ideal for this task or for bees flying, so we decided to get them into the hives in a different way than we have before. We wanted to reduce the numbers of the bees flying up and around during the process. It was clumsy. The bees didn't do what we expected, so what we thought would be one step was at least three. I decided to try doing this job bare-handed this year, which went just fine (photo evidence below), but I failed to wear a hat or put my hair up, so a bee flew straight into my hair and got stuck. Ultimately, we did install the bees in their hives and closed and wrapped them up for the three days of cold, rainy weather that followed. 

At the end of last week, the sun came out and made for a couple of warmer, brighter days. It was the first time I saw the bees coming and going like I would normally expect them to and they were considerably less agitated. I even saw some pollen coming in! There is a bee with pollen in the photo below, for those who like the challenge.

As I am writing, we are back in weather advisories. Snow to the west, tornado to the south, and thunderstorms here. We have been feeding the bees with syrup and small amounts of pollen patties until things start budding a blooming outside, and we are yearning for spring to really, really arrive.

While we have had some doses of reality in our recent beekeeping, it is important to remember that the purpose of doing things isn't to be perfect at doing them. We learn and we do things as part of a story much larger and more real than perfection. We work and struggle and celebrate through the learning together. In this moment, we work through the weather difficulties in the ways we know how and we celebrate the start of another beekeeping season together - our ninth!