Musings of an Unseasoned Beeman

We’re at the start of week 12, and despite a fantastic beginning of our beekeeping career, we’ve hit the wall – big time.  Last week was pretty lousy here weather-wise, and I didn’t inspect the hive, as it was rainy, and we had family in for the weekend.
However, upon inspecting the hive today, it was [...]

Well the good news is that what we saw last weekend was definitely not a swarm, it was simply a mass orienting flight by some lots of the young ladies.  The bad news is that this week one of the new bees obviously didn’t get the memo on how to properly treat the guy in [...]

Today, I was doing yardwork, passing in front of the hive several times.  I like to stop and watch the bees a lot, and noticed that the hive was very loud, compared to a usual day.
A bit later, just after the full sun hit the hive, I was going to go by again, when I [...]

The bees just finished up their 8th week at the White House, and things are looking great.  I was a little suprised to find lots of empty cells on the frames in the lower cells – where brood had once been, but once I inspected the upper chamber, it was obvious that the queen had [...]

It’s the end of  week 7 with the bees, and I’m antsy to take a look, as we were in Vermont last weekend, so it’s been two weeks since I was able to take a peek at the bees.  Earlier in the week, I removed the entrance reducer so they have full run of the [...]