Hyacinths coming up

Springing ahead

March has been pretty dry and warm in Colorado and we finally got our first precipitation of the month yesterday.  Luckily, we missed the snow which went south of us and today it’s supposed to be back up in the 60’s again.  With all this warm weather, flowers and trees Read more…

Late-winter notes

We’ve had some unusually warm weather in Colorado for the first half of February.  On February 10th, I hit 77.4°F in the bee yard (Denver broke the record high temperature for the month at 80°F that day) , but most days have been in the low to mid 60’s for Read more…

Diana's Double Nickels Honey

Mites and Robbers

Sarah’s hive was one of the most productive of my hives this year.  Even though the bees did a lot of cross combing, they made some of the most beautiful and tasty white honey combs. The colony had been booming all summer and there where no obvious (at least to Read more…

Endless Summer

We’ve been experiencing a dry, warm Autumn in Colorado.  Although we had our first hard freeze the other day, temperatures have been in the mid 80’s the past couple of days.  The bees are still out collecting pollen from the few remaining cosmos and asters, but their foraging resources are Read more…

Agastache Autumn

As summer winds down and we are now in the meteorological autumn, the bees are getting ready for the coming winter. Pollen and nectar sources are winding down, but in my yard, a couple of different agastache plants are still blooming and the bees are loving them. In my front Read more…

The Queen is Not Dead!

In my last post, I mentioned that Laura’s hive was queenless and there were no signs that any of the queens that had hatched made it back from their mating flights.  I spent the week trying to buy a new queen locally, but all my efforts turned up empty handed.  Read more…

August Musings

It’s been a hot, dry summer for the bees, but that hasn’t stopped them from making a good crop of honey.  Normally, first year packages spend their time building comb and enough honey to get them through the winter and a honey harvest is not in the cards.  But mine Read more…