We are making the leap into the world of migratory beekeeping this winter. On Wednesday we loaded up the girls to spend the winter in northern California to prepare them for the almond pollination that arrives in February. They should arrive at their destination today, and then they will be able to fly in temperatures […]
Big happy news from bee land–the first parts of a new building for the Mount Vernon property arrived the other day! The expansion in our apicultural pursuits has overwhelmed the storage space over the past few years, so our friends at Wick Buildings and Path Construction have the posts and form material to get the […]
Last week some of the bees got pulled from several yards. Here are Andria and Wynne proud of loading them up and strapping them down! Nice work! Peaceful Bees Loaded Up! And we are still feeding awfully hard. It’s incredible how much support they need after being shut inside for weeks earlier than usual. Temps […]
We finished the latest round on the bee circuit last Friday. That did involve getting the truck stuck at one location at the bottom of a long hill, but fortunately the landowner was near at hand with his tracked skid steer from our friends at Caterpillar. That was a very short term holdup, and I […]
We are in another week-long stretch of excessive cool precipitation. A few days ago it was decent enough for some moderate pollen collection, but not really an opportunity for the fall flood of proteins that make late brood rearing a well-nourished operation. This is the first fall where I’m regretting not putting out pollen patties […]
The syrup pump from the previous post has rejoined the mission to save the bees. After several journeys back into the yards, I believe we are able to trust it to help prepare for winter during the upcoming weeks. I bought it used as part of a package deal several years ago and only needed […]
The other day I dropped into the well-loved brewpub in Solon, Big Grove Brewery, and saw that our honey had been put to good use by their brewer. He concocted the cleverly named and quite tasty Good Day 2 DIPA. I complimented his good work 🙂 We’re hoping to put honey from the bees we […]
As the bees move into the brood boxes for the rest of the year following harvest, there are always a few that don’t take kindly to their rapidly reduced real estate. Who wants one or two deep boxes after being all stacked up for a honey crop??? Alas, it’s important for fall management and forthcoming […]
September 1st! It was a very productive week. Most of the honey is off the hives, and most of them had one or two mite treatments in August. I’ve had much greater success with hive strength and overwintering if we begin the major knockdown in August rather than September. If it waits until October, I […]
We continue to truck along with the 2018 honey harvest. The barrels are filling as the pressure mounts to stay on top of the parasite loads. As we were working in the extracting room yesterday, I spotted some pink “honey” in a frame we uncapped for the extractor. My first thought was that the bees […]