Mud Songs

Gone Away is The Bluebird

Phillip — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:25:01 +0000

THE FOLLOWING WAS UPDATED WITH A VIDEO & PHOTOS ON FEB. 02, 2012(ANOTHER SLOW NEWS DAY AT MUD SONGS). Yup. It’s still winter. I hear that honey bees in the UK are starting to bring in pollen. Well, goody for them. About an hour later: Two days later (photo taken from inside the house): Again [...]

How to Make Pollen Patties

Phillip — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:50:56 +0000

We feed our bees pollen in the form of pollen patties for two reasons: 1) To get the queen laying in late winter, around mid-February, so that the colony’s population is at a healthy level when spring arrives. 2) To give a nuc colony the boost it needs throughout the summer so that it can [...]

Crystallized Honey (After 4 Months)

Phillip — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:08:29 +0000

THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED. Some of our honey from 2011 has begun to crystallize in the bottles, specifically the extracted honey that was always cloudy. The crushed-and-strained honey is no longer perfectly clear like apple juice, but it’s still liquid. LEFT: Crushed-and-strained honey from Sept. 27/11. RIGHT: Crystallized extracted honey from [...]

Winter Begins

Phillip — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:49:25 +0000

It was -14°C today with a -26°C (-15°F) wind chill. The hives bore it well. Only another three months to go, if we’re lucky. Continued in Gone Away is The Bluebird.

Beekeeping Start-Up Costs (2012)

Phillip — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:30:42 +0000

The following is a rough cost estimate and guide for setting up a bare minimum honey bee hive on the island of Newfoundland in 2012. (It’ll come to about $700.) It’s better to start with more than one hive, but if you need to go cheap, this is the way to do it. We order [...]

Ants Eat Hive Insulation

Phillip — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:21:35 +0000

A word of caution to beekeepers who use hard insulation in their hives for any reason: some ants have an appetite for insulation. Check out this photo sent to me from a beekeeper in Indiana: I doubt this kind of infestation would be an issue for beekeepers on the island of Newfoundland or in similar [...]

Dry Sugar Feeding Update

Phillip — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:31:32 +0000

We added dry sugar to all four of our hives eight days ago, following what some call the Mountain Camp Method of feeding. I took a quick peek under the hood of two of the hives today to see how well they’re taking to the sugar and this is what I saw: The Mountain Camp [...]

Dead Bees and High & Low Clusters

Phillip — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:17:59 +0000

THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED. More dead bees are showing up on the bottom of the foundationless hive, enough to nearly clog the entire bottom entrance. (I first noticed the dead bees on December 22nd.) Most of the them appear to be drones. Are drones fed like the queen, or can they [...]

Dry Sugar Feeding

Phillip — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:21:38 +0000

We decided to give each of our honey bee colonies about 4 pounds of sugar yesterday because the bees have been clustering at the top of the hives for the past few weeks and are possibly running low on honey stores. We fed them dry sugar following what in some circles is referred to as [...]

2011 Backyard Beekeeping in St. John’s, Newfoundland: A Retrospective Slideshow

Phillip — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:18:29 +0000

2011 wasn’t a good year for beekeepers on the east coast of Newfoundland. We had a late wet spring, a short cold summer, and we (i.e., the royal we, as in I’m talking about yours truly) made plenty of mistakes along the way. But we managed to harvest about 20kg of honey from our two [...]