This post, bound to be wildly unpopular, is a reminder about Varroa mites. At this time of year, when colonies are large without a mite in sight, it’s easy to underestimate them. But like a terrorist cell, they work in secret. They know their time will come. During spring build-up of honey bee colonies, the […] Read more
I wasn’t going to write about this until I figured it out, but I’m coming up blank. On July 5, I checked my top-bar hive and saw a massive pile of dead bees on the ground just outside the entrance. My first thought: pesticide kill. I’ve seen pesticide kills before and it looked just the […] Read more
If you detect a reeking, putrefying, gagging odor near your beehives this time of year, it could be the aroma of dead drones. Phillip at Mudsongs.org and I both detected it yesterday, and we both went through moments of self-doubt when we wondered what was happening to our hives. Having forgotten the lessons of the […] Read more
When food sources run low, such as during a summer nectar dearth, the workers in a honey bee hive will often expel both drones and drone pupae. Since drones eat plenty of food but don’t collect any, it is a way for the colony to conserve stores for the winter. Later on, in the fall, […] Read more
The temperature dropped to 46 degrees F last night. Alder leaves are falling by the bushel. It rained all last week. I wore a sweater all day yesterday. Instead of brown and crispy, my lawn is still green. What is going on? Summer never really started here in the Puget Sound area and I’ve kind […] Read more
Ever wonder why you sometimes see bees of a different color in one hive? Maybe some are black and some are yellow? The answer is simple genetics. Since a queen may mate with many different drones (as many as 20), the progeny of that queen may look strikingly different from one another. Italian drones, for […] Read more
The easiest method of raising a new queen is to move a ripe queen cell from a busy colony into a nuc or mating box stocked with nurse bees and brood. This is usually the first type of queen rearing a new beekeeper tries and it is both fun and effective. Plus it gives a […] Read more