Virginia is not so cold that we need to insulate our hives in the winter. I’m sure some folks do, though the temperatures do not get really cold for long stretches typically. A box of honey on top of a regular hive and they are usually good to go. My view is that insulation would probably help, who doesn’t like an extra blanket on those cold winter days? So even though I don’t insulate most of my hives, I do give them an insulated cover.
Continue readingMonth: October 2022
2022 Oct 22 – Bees on Cosmos
It may be fall, and may be cold (cool?) in Virginia, but the bees forage on. This week I was walking around the yard and found bees visiting the cosmos flowers that have bloomed recently. I planted some last year, and they self seeded to produce the flowers in this post. I was pleased to see a couple bees on them, probably looking for pollen. Cosmos is a good late-blooming flower. It is an annual though as you see here it can self-seed in future years.
Continue reading2022 Oct 8 – Bird Bath Bees
A picture from a couple weeks ago. When feeding the bees, I use a five gallon container to mix the sugar syrup and dump it into the feeders. I usually have a little residue at the bottom, which I mix with warm water and dump into a bird bath we have on the side of the house.
Continue reading2022 Oct 2 – Hive Beetle Larva
While feeding one of my top bar hives last week, there was some debris in the back of the hive. This was separate from the actual comb and bees, and some small hive beetles had apparently laid some eggs in there. I’m pretty sure the bees would have kept the larva out of the hive and they would likely have died in the eventual cold, but I scooped it out with my hive tool and crushed the little buggers just to be sure.
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Bees with eeb 