I saw my first local flower of 2022 in our lawn today. I was on my way to look at the bees and happened to see a couple flowers of creeping speedwell, or Veronica filiformis. This low-growing plant is well adapted to typical lawn care practices, so is considered by some to be a pesky weed. I celebrate it as a later winter flower that provides some early food for bees and other insects.
Continue reading2022 Feb 18 – Frame Cleaning
It is February – the calm before the storm. Bees are growing and just waiting to burst forth once warmer weather and flower blooms arrive. Beekeepers, meanwhile, are thinking about what equipment they need for the coming season. Should I order more boxes or more frames? Spring is coming.
One chore I have not undertaken before is the cleaning of frames. Last year and I should have done it, and this year I really just need to. After five years I can no longer put it off. I have some time next week and am hoping to make this a priority. Turns out it is not a fun activity, removing wax and propolis to clean and ready a frame for a new season. An image of each is shown in the picture.
Continue reading2022 Feb 06 – Winter Bees
This past week we had a brief bout of warm weather. It was an unusually cold January, and last Wednesday we had a day over 50 F (10 C). The bees were very excited and the photo shows what I found in front of the hive I call Eris that afternoon.
Continue reading2022 Jan 30 – Weeping Cherry
I was outside in the cold and snow today, thinking about the bees huddled in their hive and how the yard would be full of flowers and nectar fairly soon. Our weeping cherry (Prunus subhirtella) tree typically blooms in early April. It has a somewhat awkward winter shape, kind of all over the place with the small branches that will eventually hold spring flows hanging down.
Continue reading2022 Jan 17 – Bee Crossing
It has been a weekend of cold, wind, snow, ice, and rain. Hopefully the bees are clustered and warm. Today a picture from the corner of my bee yard. You can see the hives covered with snow inside the fence.
May you prosper and find honey.
2022 Jan 8 – Winter Entrance
Today’s photo is a picture of the hive entrance to my top bar hive Saturn. You can see how the bees have blocked off part of the entrance with propolis. They often do this if the bees decide they don’t need as much room during the winter. The smaller entrance protects the hive from wind and helps keep potential intruders out.
Continue reading2022 Jan 3 – Happy New Year
Welcome to a new year, hopefully a bit better than the last one. I thought I would try something new, given my dearth of posts this past year. I plan to post a short status and a picture or two at more regular intervals, and we’ll see how this goes. Today we had our first real snow of the season, so I thought it would be a good time to begin.
I have 8 hives overwintering, including two nucs insulated for the winter and four 8-frame Langstroth hives. You can just make out the other Langstroth hives at the top of the photo. I cleaned off the entrances to allow better air flow into the hives.
I also have two top bar hives, which are shown below.
May you prosper and find honey in the new year.
Count all the bees in the hive
Welcome to the end of beekeeping winter. With March around the corner beekeepers everywhere are thinking about spring and flowers and nectar and bees. It is common practice to worry about weather, flower blooms, hives, and equipment when you are a beekeeper, and I am no exception. Did we prepare for winter well enough to see the bees through this part of the season? Will the flowers bloom soon enough, or should I put some food in the hive? Do I have enough equipment for the year, and is it ready to go?
As the day lengthens, so the hive strengthens
It is snowing today. Between global warming and mountains to our west, we seem to get less and less snow every year. Which is a real shame as I enjoy the white stuff. If it is going to be cold, we may as well have snow. In a prior post I gave a rundown of my top bar hives from 2020, so in this post I share my Langstroth hives.
Silent Hives
It has become a Christmas tradition to post a bit of holiday poetry at this time of year. I had resolved to skip the tradition this year as I have been rather busy, then I just plain changed my mind a couple days ago and here I am. So allow me to present my latest work, for the sixth year in a row, Silent Hives.
Bees with eeb 