Frances and the Bee

Since I don't update the blog often, sometimes, when I sit to write, I wonder where to start.  After the last two years of beekeeping, we found ourselves in a place of learning mostly from the mistakes we made. Honey yield is not our main goal of this pursuit, but it is a goal, and we just didn't have the harvests we'd like to see. We haven't been as successful at getting our bees through winter as we want to be. This beekeeping year, we regrouped and have been working hard on keeping up with spring feeding, doing inspections more often and with more intention, learning MUCH more about pre-swarm behavior and inside-the-hive space management, etc. Each week, I kept thinking of updating my notes here, but I knew that several days later, we'd have more we had been thinking or doing...and so here we are in July, 2020. Oh, 2020.  I won't address the upheaval this year has brought with it except that, in the particular theme of things here, it brings to my mind quite ...

Well, quite a lot has changed in the six months since my last post.  We had one of our least productive years for honey and it was largely due to our failure to split the hives early in the season.  I also had surgery in the early fall which made preparing the hive for winter drop on the list of priorities. Still, Mr. Bee prepared the hive for winter on our patio in hopes that we could keep a closer eye on them.  We waited and watched and checked often to see if we could hear that buzz inside the box.  They made if for some time, but unfortunately, the hive starved out and we were looking at another, "opportunity to learn from out mistakes."  From talking with a couple other keepers in the area, it sounds like it was not a banner year for a lot of people around here. Like in years past, we have picked ourselves up by the bootstraps and we ordered two new packages of bees.  And then came the real time to persist... All of the beekeeping mistakes certainl...

It is now August, and signs of the last part of summer are all around.  The county fair came and went, the school supply lists are out, and the leaves on the trees can be heard a little more as the wind blows through them. Minnesotans, although very fond of autumn, try not to mention its pending arrival.  We are soaking up every last drop of summer here. In my last update, we had two awesome hives and I was daydreaming about a stack of honey supers taller than me on each one. We started to see fresh, capped honey. With the changes in season come the usual changes to plant and animal life in the area. The corn is high, some of the flowers are going to seed, and the deer are out at sunset to eat up soybeans.  This isn't to mention how plump some of the toads have gotten: Unfortunately, though, we have also had a change in our beekeeping season. During one of the inspections a while back, we saw that the brood patterns were really healthy and we decide...

It’s the week of the Fourth of July and that’s normally when we have the start of greatest flow of nectar in our area. Spring was wet, though, and summer has taken it’s time to appear (I think it is finally safe to say it is here). We are watching to see if and how the beekeeping year is affected by these factors. Regardless of how long it feels like it took for summer to make itself known, it is here, and you can tell by looking at the hives. Trees and grass and wildflowers are surrounding them, and it’s just beautiful.  We did decide to do something unique this year. Beekeepers using the Langstroth hive (the type we use) generally use 8, 9 or 10 frames in each box. Mr. Bee prefers 10-frames, but they are larger and quite noticeably heavier. I prefer 8 frames since they are easier for me to lift and they make for nice, tall stacks at the end of the season. (We have enjoyed using 9 frames in a 10-frame box, but that is a story for another day.) Orange pollen c...

Before I talk about Bee Day, I have an update on our wintering hive. It did not survive all of April. About a week before our new bees arrived, we were cleaning out that hive. Nevertheless, we picked up and installed our two packages of Carniolan honey bees on April 20. This year's season was and is under way. Two bee "packages." April 20 was a Saturday and a gorgeous day for picking up bees.  We thought we were completely set up for the smoothest installation ever. Instead, our installations were the clumsiest we have ever had.  Rather than talk about the way that we tried to install the first package in an unfavorable location and had thousands of bees flying around for a couple of hours, or the way that we accidentally released the queen for the other package and watched her fly away, I will talk about the two main lessons we learned. - We will try to always install bees at or after 6 pm.   At this time, the bees are getting ready to settle in and mo...