On Saturday, it was time to harvest some honey from Duncan’s hive (aka Hello Kitty). His sisters and parents joined in the fun – watching, laughing, videoing and getting stung. What should have been an easy harvest, turned into a Read more…
I took advantage of a change in the weather (30 degrees F cooler than yesterday) to harvest some of the honey out of BnB1. In past inspections, they had been making brand new white comb in the back and capping Read more…
Since BnB2 was completely full last time I checked, I needed to pull out a couple of bars of capped honey to make some room. The nice thing about top bar hives is that you can open up the back, Read more…
When people find out I’m a beekeeper, usually the first question is, “Do you ever get stung?” I usually reply, “Only when I do something stupid”, which is pretty much the truth. Honey bees are judicious with their stings because Read more…
One of the downsides to top bar hives is that new comb is very fragile since it’s only attached to the top bar. In a Langstroth frame, the comb is attached to the foundation that provides stability, or if you Read more…
We’ve been having a lot of hot weather the past 2 weeks (hit 102ºF on June 21st), which has made hive inspections problematic. When it’s really warm, new comb can easily collapse, especially if it’s loaded with nectar or honey. Read more…
I started out this year with one hive and one queen. Through splits and swarms and packages, I’m now up to seven queens for seven hives (brides for brothers?). Of the seven, two queens are home grown (raised from eggs Read more…