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It was a winter of bee starvation. In the past few weeks I’ve heard countless tales of beekeepers losing all or nearly all their hives to starvation. Many of these hives had not a drop of honey left. Others had full frames of honey remaining, but the bees starved anyway. During cold weather, the [...] While it is natural to sigh with relief when spring finally rolls around, in truth, spring is one of the hardest seasons for both bees and beekeepers. Spring colonies that have overwintered face a particularly daunting set of circumstances. For example: By spring, the number of individuals in a colony is greatly reduced compared [...] Since I published “How I overwintered ten out of ten” several people have asked me what I did with the slatted racks during the winter. Since I always leave slatted racks in place, I didn’t think of them as an overwintering strategy, so I left them off my list. Now I see that my [...] Last week a reader wrote in to ask why her bees weren’t more logical. She said her hive is full of honey and a lot of it is right next to the bees. But regardless of the vast supply of honey, her bees scarfed down sugar cakes as if there were no tomorrow. Is [...] Here in western Washington it is a great day for honey bees. The temperature is hovering around 55° F in the shade and my bees are out in droves. All my hives are misted with bees, but my two nucs—stacked one above the other—really surprised me. The great cloud of bees milling around them [...] For years I’ve been trying to reduce moisture accumulation in my wintering hives. Then last summer, after much reading about Warré hives, I decided to modify a Warré-style quilt box into something that might work on my Langstroths here in the Pacific Northwest. I spent quite a while thinking about this and a long [...] A winter cluster can be thought of as a ball of bees dissected by sheets of honeycomb. Clusters begin to form when the outside air temperature falls to about 57°F (14°C). Bees in these clusters are in no way hibernating but are actively moving, eating, and performing hive duties. The comb in the very [...] The last sting-of-the-year is what I got yesterday. I look a little like Rudolph-the-reindeer except I took it on the chin. I also had the last sting-of-the-year a week ago–or so I thought–when I got stung on the little finger. But at this point, that one simply turned out to be the penultimate sting-of-the-year. [...] About twice a week during the winter months, I walk around to all the hives just to make sure they haven’t been tipped over by a bear or some other hairy creature. While I’m making these rounds I flick the dead bees off the landing board and clean away any snow or soggy leaves. [...] |
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