Frances and the Bee

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...

...which is tomorrow! We've been setting out the hives, feeding sugar syrup to the bees who made it through winter, and getting our new top bar hive finalized.  I'm looking forward to sharing with you about our "Bee Day"!

Welcome to another beekeeping season! This photo may not look like much, but we're really excited about it. Our hive has made it through the winter!   ...at least so far. Will this cold weather ever go away? See that happy beekeeper above? Mr. Bee was listening to their familiar hum. Once the weather warms a bit more, we'll start feeding these bees some sugar syrup until there is plenty of pollen and nectar available outside. We have also placed an order for two more packages of Italian honeybees, to arrive (hopefully) in late April. That will make three hives total.  For one of those hives, we're going to try a different hive style, called a top bar hive.  I'm looking forward to sharing more about this we have everything ready and I can get some photos. I'm looking forward to seeing if Little Miss Bee will try on her suit this year and join us aside the hive.  In the meantime, look how Little Mr. Bee is handling the cold weather: I thought I...

I'm (finally) getting you a photo of this year's harvest.  Introducing... our 2014 honey! Here is a photo to compare this year to last year (on left). Although they look similar at first, this year's honey is much lighter and sweeter, more like store-bought or clover honey.  We do miss the slightly pungent hint of buckwheat in last year's batch, we're so thankful to have this sweet reward. Please stay tuned for updates on our winter preparation for the hive.

I'm sorry I've been a bit behind with my updates.  Since I've last posted, Mr. Bee has been busy getting the hives ready for winter and it's become rather chilly outside. We've had high temperatures in the forties lately. After a lot of thought and consideration, we did decide to only winter the strongest, middle hive. We harvested our honey last night...in the kitchen.  We'll be putting everything in jars this week, so I'll share photos of the result soon.  We got about six gallons this year!  That's in addition to the six gallons that we're estimating we've left for the bees. While I'm busy trying to remedy all the stickiness in our kitchen and get some photos of our harvest, I'll leave you with a list of what we've been doing lately.  These photos are by Mr. Bee, on his phone.  I hope they come through your screen clearly. We replaced the screened bottom board with a solid-bottom winter board. There are only three small holes...