Author: Erik

Erik https://beeswitheeb.wordpress.com/ My initials really are e-e-b, so what better blog to have than one about bees. When not thinking about bees, I work in the IT group of Fortune 500 healthcare company in Northern Virginia. Aside from the little buzzers, I enjoy soccer, writing, and annoying my family.
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1001 Arabian Mites

Qunice

Our Quince blooming on December 26, 2015

This started as my official end of year hive update, so now it has become my official beginning of the year hive update. Happy 2016 to one and all. The hives are officially closed up until spring is on the horizon. With our mostly warm days of late, this might come sooner than expected. We had some bushes start to bloom, especially our two Quince bushes, though the weather turned decidedly cold this week so winter seems to have finally arrived. Continue reading →

Hey-bee it’s cold outside

151206 BroodMinder 2

Placing a BroodMinder sensor on top of Mars on December 6.

I received my BroodMinder “Health Telemetry Sensor” devices this past week. It was a good week to have temperature and humidity sensors, as it’s been colder here with some hard frosts overnight multiple days in a row. Mind you, this is Virginia, so it’s been warm with the bees flying in the afternoons. This weekend we’re expecting temperatures near 70 (21 C), so don’t feel too bad for me or the bees.

I thought I would share some initial experience with the device and some changes I’ve already made to the hives as a result of the readings. Continue reading →

Bees With A Smile

keeping-bees-with-a-smile1

I recently finished Fedor Lazutin’s book Keeping Bees With A Smile. It is a rather fascinating read about keeping bees naturally in the depths of Russia, where the winters really are six months long. I have to thank the Happy Hour at the Top Bar blog for recommending the book. I really enjoyed the different perspective on beekeeping and discussion of a hive style I was not at all familiar with. Continue reading →

Happy is the bee that the sun shines on

151124a Hat Bee

This bee landed on my hat (while I was wearing it) and hung out long enough for a picture. © Erik Brown

The cold is slowly coming to Virginia. Most of our days have been warm enough for the bees to fly, with only a handful of fall days colder than 50 degrees (10 Celcius). A couple frosty nights here and there but again most nights well above freezing. Tuesday I finished some winter preparations on the hives, and it was in the mid-50’s. The top bar hive was especially buzzing for a good 15 or 20 minutes, with dozens of bees checking out the bee yard.

According to Jürgen Tautz in his book The Buzz about Bees, so-called orientation flights generally occur only when a queen is present. So I’ll take this activity as a good sign. Continue reading →

Dancing Queen: watch that scene

Welcom

This is the second of two posts about the VSBA 2015 Fall Meeting. See the intro post for a short summary of the meeting, and the prior post for a discussion of Dr. David Tarpy’s talks. This second post is about the sessions given by Dr. Ernesto Guzman on selective breeding and the use of natural oils and nutraceuticals in a hive. Continue reading →

The Buzz about Bees

Buzz about BeesI finished reading Jürgen Tautz’s book The Buzz about Bees, Biology of a Superorganism. A number of sources touted this as an excellent book, and I was not disappointed. The book presents the case for treating the entire colony as an organism. Center to Tautz’s argument is that a bee on its own cannot reproduce; the unit of reproduction is the colony itself via swarming and requires the workers, the drones, as well as the queen. Continue reading →