Beekeeping

As previously mentioned, we lost last year’s colony in a bad snowstorm, and we’ve had lots of people asking if we’re planning to get more bees. Absolutely we are, but we’re hoping to get them in the same method – by luring a swarm rather than purchasing them. You can buy bees – it’s about […]

Sadly, our bees didn’t make it. I had been checking on them fairly regularly, and all through the winter, they were going strong. The last bad snowfall we got through, came with strong winds, and the next time I checked – there were no signs of life anymore. No heat signatures, no dead bees outside.

Well, outside I went again this morning to check on the bees. It was a little chilly at -4°C (25°F) for shorts and a t-shirt, but I was only out there for a few minutes. I just wanted to check to see if we still had bees, as you might be curious as well.

Well, we woke up this morning to a fairly substantial snowfall, which of course begs the question, “How are the bees doing?” So, I threw on some boots, trudged out to the back of the yard and went to go check on them. There’s not a whole lot you can do to check on them

Quite a few people have asked how the bees are doing with the cold weather. Hard to say. They’re definitely still in there. I took a picture with an infrared camera and you can see the air coming out of the top entrance of the hive is warmer than the boxes. It’s not huge difference,

Nice warm days ahead. The bees are going crazy gathering whatever they can. Surprisingly, we still have drones coming and going. Most people in Ontario have had their drones kicked out already. Apparently if a hive is very strong, they don’t bother kicking them out. So, hopefully that’s a good sign. So far our treatment

Since yesterday was sunny and about as warm as it’s going to get for a bit, Brynnley and I decided to check out how the bees were doing. Christina stayed inside, because she had gotten stung again, this time in the face, causing a lot of swelling, to the point that she couldn’t open one

Last time we opened the hive, it was packed. They were starting to build comb between the boxes because they didn’t have anywhere else to store nectar. So, after thinking about it for a few days, I decided to grab one frame out of the hive and give them back an empty one (with comb

Took a peak in the hive today. Tons of bees on the outside. And wall to wall bees on the inside. This is a look between the slats of the brood box (the bottom painted box), it’s like that for about 9 inches down, then 3 more shallower boxes on top about 4.5″ deep each.

This is pretty much all day every day lately. They’re pulling in goldenrod nectar and pollen which, unfortunately, makes the hive smell a bit like sweaty socks. It doesn’t have the usual nice smell of honey and beeswax at the moment. But apparently that’s normal and once the nectar becomes honey, it will taste perfectly