Split Hive

We went into the hive that we were trying to make a split from. We had queen cells in this hive, and had even seen a queen a couple weeks before this. We went in to see if she had the opportunity to go on her mating flights and had started laying eggs. Much to our disappointment, there was no sign of her. We didn't see a queen, we didn't see capped brood, we didn't see larvae, we didn't see eggs. We have successfully raised queens, we just can't successfully get them back from mating flights. This is very discouraging and sad. We evaluated what to do next. We basically had 3 options.  We could give it more time as maybe she was out on a mating flight and hadn't started laying yet, we could add brood from another hive to this one to keep laying workers at bay and hope they'll make another queen with what we give them, or we could combine this hive with another hive. On the plus side, this hive is making honey! It looks delicious. I've also put a picture of a drone. Drones can't sting and they die after mating. They are larger than worker bees and their little eyes sit right on top of their heads. I may be biased, but I think he is quite handsome! 

Pesticides and Neonicotinoids

As you are planting your gardens or flower beds, I wanted to give you a warning about pesticides. The use of Round Up to kill weeds could also be killing our pollinators. Plants are also now being treated with neonicotinoids, which is a pesticide to treat insects. The unfortunate thing about pesticides is they cannot differentiate between pests and beneficial insects. In a study done in 18 states, 51% of plants sold at Home Depot, Lowes, and Walmart were treated with neonicotinoids at levels that harm or kill bees. Home Depot is phasing out plants treated with neonicotinoids by 2018, and Lowe's by 2019. From what I've read, plants do not necessarily have to be labeled. If they are, I've enclosed a picture of what the label may look like. There are some websites that state the fears of neonicotinoids are nonsense, and there isn't enough "evidence" to support claims that pesticides do damage to bees and other pollinators. I can tell you I've spoken to enough beekeepers that have experienced Colony Collapse Disorder and dead bees (hundreds and thousands in front of the hive) to lead me to NEVER use anything that may damage our precious pollinators. Please shop wisely, ask questions, and help save our pollinators! (Heirloom seeds will be your best bet!)

Swarm Catchers!

So a swarm showed up at our house.  Short of knocking on our door and asking for a hive box to go in to, they really couldn't have made it much easier for us to catch them.  They were on a butterfly bush in front of our house.  Easy to see, low to the ground, easy to catch.  Obviously, these girls wanted to be ours!  We loaded our utility wagon with a hive body with some drawn comb frames, grabbed our tool bucket with hive tool, smoker, saw, gloves, spray bottle with sugar syrup, and headed to the swarm.  This was our first time catching a swarm, so we weren't really sure what to do or expect.  We had seen some YouTube videos, so we figured we were somewhat educated.  At first we tried scooping the bees with our hands and brushing them into the hive body.  There were A LOT more bees than we thought, and we wanted to move quickly so as not to get them aggravated.  Some people think that swarms of bees are dangerous.  This is not true.  Bees that have swarmed are actually quite docile as they have nothing to defend.  We ended up cutting the limb off the butterfly bush and gently shook the bees into the hive body. We left the hive sitting out overnight to let any straggler bees get the scent of the queen and head into the box.  The next day the bees were still with us, so we moved them to their new location.  We added sugar syrup to a feeder, closed them up, and left them alone.  Sometimes a swarm will decide they don't like their new location and leave.  We saw bees flying in and out of the hive, so we figured they had decided to stay.  Free rent, free food, luxury accommodations....what more could they want???  The bees are still with us, so they must like their new home!

Welcome to Our Bee Journey

We started beekeeping in May of 2015. Down here where we live, we were right in the middle of a nectar flow. We had no hope of getting honey, our purpose was to keep our bees alive through the winter. We had a strong hive and a queen who was laying like nobodies business! (she is marked in with the blue dot) Well, at the end of the season, before the summer solstice, we decided to split that hive. We moved this queen and some worker bees to a friend's house. A storm moved through and knocked this hive over. Our bees disappeared and we couldn't lure them back. The split we made with these bees hatched 2 queens, but (best as we could figure), neither made it back from their mating flights. Bees can be eaten by birds, hornets, dragonflies, etc. We had lost everything and reached out in desperation to our bee club for help. Some wonderful people stepped forward and helped us maintain the bees we had left with frames of brood. Without a queen, these bees would also eventually die out. We ended up buying 2 nucleus hives from a man in our bee club. 1 nucleus was European hybrid bees, the other Russian bees. We combined the bees we had left with 1 of the nucleus hives. Our Europeans were weak, and did not survive the winter. The Russian bees were VERY strong and made it through the winter with flying colors! We split this hive in April.  We also purchased a package of bees that is doing well and caught a swarm that has decided to stay with us.  Welcome to our bee journey!!