Mud Songs

Signs of a Queenless Hive?

Phillip — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:22:39 +0000

THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED. Well, I think we may have our first queenless hive. Or something. I checked our one foundationless Langstroth hive today for the first time this year and saw no sign of the queen. No worker brood of any kind. Just a lot of empty cells and plenty [...]

Hive Cam

Phillip — Sat, 12 May 2012 19:20:25 +0000

Today, just for fun, I stuck the camera underneath our foundationless hive while it temporarily had only a screened bottom board. We’re concerned about our foundationless hive because we don’t see nearly as many bees coming and going from it as we do from our other three hives. Perhaps the two-year-old queen is failing. Perhaps [...]

Comparing Hives

Phillip — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:30:57 +0000

It’s 2pm and 20°C (70°F) in our backyard as I write this. A cool breeze but sunny. Three of our four hives are active and looking good. Hey, let’s go take a look: Hives 3 and 4 were started from nucs last year and are doing well. Hive #1 is one of our original hives [...]

Checkerboarding with Fat Bee Man

Phillip — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:16:14 +0000

I don’t usually post videos that aren’t my own, but this video from Fat Bee Man works well as a follow-up to yesterday’s long winded post about our first checkerboarded hive. Fat Bee Man says, “When the bees get full [i.e., when the hive gets full], they do what’s natural. They’re going to multiply, so [...]

Checkers, Anyone?

Phillip — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:50:38 +0000

This is a long boring post that most first-year beekeepers can skip. You can also skip it if you can interpret the diagram below. That tells you everything you need to know. If your hives are exploding with bees, though, well… I checkerboarded a hive for the first time yesterday. It wasn’t planned and I [...]

Reversing Brood Boxes (Video)

Phillip — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:35:35 +0000

I performed the first full hive inspection of the year yesterday. I also reversed the brood boxes while I was at it. Next year I plan to reverse the boxes shortly after the bees start hauling in pollen from the crocuses (instead of waiting until the dandelions bloom). Whether from dandelions or crocuses, if the [...]

First Dandelion of 2012

Phillip — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:52:45 +0000

Maybe they’ve been around for a while. Maybe not. But we saw our first dandelion of 2012 today: Two seconds later: So I mosey on over to the hives and lo and behold, bees bringing in yellow pollen: One more time: The bees are almost tame at this of the year:

Outdoor Feeding

Phillip — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:41:59 +0000

THE FOLLOWING WAS UPDATED ON MAY 11, 2012. I have no great love for hive top feeders of any kind. So today I placed an otherwise useless insert feeder a fair distance from the hives, filled it half way with syrup and wood chips and let the bees go to it. I know there are [...]

Me and a Bee

Phillip — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:35:31 +0000

One of the few photos of me (with a bee on my hand).

How to Paint Hive Boxes

Phillip — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:11:41 +0000

This is one way to paint hive boxes (or supers). Hang them between two saw horses (like Rusty does at Honey Bee Suite) and paint them: We don’t have any saw horses, but we managed to improvise something like this: Here’s the video: We painted our hives with linseed oil when we first got into [...]