Plan Bee?

Wow, 2015 has been almost the complete opposite of 2014 so far. Looks like there will be a minimal honey harvest this year with none to sell. My customers will have to hope that 2016 is better. Boo hoo. The few supers that are on the hives are all uncapped. No idea why.

Bee on Apple mint.

The poor garden is so hot and dried out. Not much is blooming now. It's been a very dry couple of months. Smoky, too with the fires in the area.

Some good news though. I was able to raise a queen from Bob's bees in another nuc. The package hive is just not thriving so I think I'll have to bite the bullet and re-queen. Hope it works!

Halfway around the world I did see some beautiful green gardens and flowers. This is in Scotland at a castle!

They sure love poppies!

Too Hot!

Wow. This weather has been insane. Well over 100 last weekend and now it's "cooling down" to the 90s. Way too hot to do much with the bees.

They're trying to cool off at night.

Luckily Bob's bees are thriving. Just got a 4th super this week. The swarm hive is growing fast and got super #2.

Uh oh! The package hive is stalling out though. Looks like they're trying to raise a new queen. No mites. Lots of pollen and honey but just not a good brood pattern. Such a bummer. I just hope they can raise a good queen and get back on track in time for fall...

Enough said!

Beautiful Brood

I looked at the swarm hive today and the queen is laying beautifully! Check it out:

Wall to wall brood.

Open brood next to capped brood. The population is growing by the minute! 

Rebuilding

Wow, looks like this is the year that I start from scratch. All three hives from last year have died out. So depressing. But! I have friends in the bee business. So I'm back up to three hives now: the package, a swarm that my friend Peggy caught and gave to me and a nuc that I bought from Bob Arnold.

Here's the swarm that I brought home in the car. I believe it had a virgin queen because she took a while to start laying but she's up and running now. 

Big fat nuc from Bob. It's in double deeps now and the queen is laying like crazy. 11 frames of brood a week ago.

The bees got pretty hot on the way home from Bobs and bearded in the car.

Lots of pollen and nectar for the bees now.

Black locust.

Bye, Bye Blue Dot

After four years of beekeeping, I still feel like a rookie sometimes. I saw something yesterday I'd never seen before. 

Remember her? My pretty blue dot queen? She just flew away yesterday! I was working with her hive and she crawled up to the top bar, up on to my hand and then she was gone! Off into to the sky. What the heck! I guess there's a chance she'll find her way back but it was unnerving all the same. 

To make matters worse, the hive she came from is not looking good at all. Maybe that's why she flew off? It was an 8-frame split that dwindled down to about 4 frames last week and now it's only 2! Yikes. The queen is laying eggs but there are so few workers that they can't raise the brood. So sad. My worker bees are MIA, the queen is AWOL and now that hive may be FUBAR. 

Also sad is how the parent hive is not looking great either. The queen is laying but they have mites. They were treated last fall with Apivar and then with Formic acid a couple of weeks ago (but it was probably too cold for it to work). Sigh.

I'll end on a good note. The package is building up nicely. No mites on the sugar shake roll yesterday. Lots of nectar coming in. The original bees from the package will start dying off this month but the queen is laying lots of eggs so the numbers should start going up soon. 

Lots of dandelions in the yard for them!  I'm afraid that the honey harvest will be pretty puny compared with years past though. Has my beginner's luck finally run out??

Package Day

Package day finally came! 

I put these bees into Cam's old hive.

Cam was supposed to take pics but he didn't want to get too close! I'll check on them this weekend to see how the new queen is doing.

I made a split from the strong hive and added this queen. Check out the blue dot! That'll make it easier to spot her.

Dad and Terrie were here this week and and came to take a peek at the girls. It was really fun to show them what was happening in the hives.

Spring is in full force and more flowers are opening every day. My goal is to get the hives as healthy and as big as possible over the next month so we can be ready for honey season!

Next job: adding the second deeps and mite control. Ugh.

Two More Weeks!

The official start of the beekeeping season is almost here: package day! Only two weeks away. I'll be getting a package for the first time since I started this whole hobby four years ago. I need to replace the dead-out that was Cam's hive. I also need a new queen so I can split Toby's hive. Then I'll be back to three hives instead of the one and a half I have right now. I am so ready to get rolling with the new year! 

I checked on Toby's hive today and they are ready to rock and roll. Both boxes are totally full of bees. The drones are hatching out and they're making more queen cups. Good thing I'm splitting it or they would be ready to swarm for sure.

Spring Cleaning

It was almost 70 degrees today! Time to turn the water on already? Crazy. The bees sure are thirsty. They're taking in tons of water for the brood. I keep having to refill their waterers.

I went all the way though hive #2 (the strong one) today and got it cleaned out and reversed the boxes. It's looking good with lots of pollen and nectar coming in. Lots of brood and even queen cups already. Yikes.

I pulled a frame of capped brood out of this one for #3 twice. It's still looking puny but if they can hang in there for another month, I can re-queen it and see if they can bounce back.  The mild weather should help.

Wait a minute! That's not a bee. That's little Loulou our new puppy. She has no idea what the bees are and keeps

trying to catch one. She'll be sorry if she does....

Spring Fever

What a weird winter this year. Flowers have been blooming in the yard since Xmas. I've been looking out at the yard and seeing nothing but clean-up work instead of snow.... It makes you think it's April instead of February. So what to do?

Escape to Seattle for the flower show! 

 Stacks of hive boxes. Cool.

This was some "garden art" made from old windows, old frames, jars and a honey "spout." Cute!

Mason bee lodging.

Very decorative.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

The bees got fooled too. The strong hive started raising drone brood which they definitely don't need right now. I pulled the frame out and gave it to the chickens who were thrilled to have the snacks.

My job for the week: organizing and cleaning the rest of the frames and boxes. 

It's weird to look out and see the spot where the dead hive was. No good. I have two queens in order for April so o can make some splits or nucs. Can't wait for the beekeeping to really start.

One more month?

Dead Out!

Oh no. My first dead hive! All three were alive two weeks ago but now I'm down to two.

This was my favorite hive too. The most honey, the least defensive and the least swarmy. So depressing. I think the problem may have been related to the late supersedure last fall. Maybe they didn't have enough time to raise a good population of winter bees? It's pretty common to lose hives over the winter so I guess my luck finally ran out.

They were still in the bottom box, all off to the east side for some reason. Lots of dead bees in the bottom and in front of the hive. Some signs of dysentery on the last three frames.

The top box was still full of honey. It's looking a little moldy but I hear it's still ok to use. The bees will clean everything up when I put a new hive together.

Ick. Moldy pollen frame. Not sure they will want this one.

This is the top deep. So full of honey I could hardly carry it to the shed. I'm hoping I can re-use the frames in April by splitting up a strong hive into two. That should help with swarming too. Gotta get through the next two months first...

Fun in the Sun

Even Spokane bees get a break every now and then during the winter.

We had a couple of warm days last weekend that got up to 50! The girls were very happy to get out for potty breaks and some fresh air.

They'll land on any dry spot near the hive, including the beekeeper!

No, I didn't get stung. It tickled though. It was really nice to see them. Can't wait for spring. The hive weights are slowly dropping but not as much as you see when they start brood rearing. That'll be later in the month.

This girl doesn't have to worry about winter. I spotted her while on vacation in Hawaii earlier this month.

ABF 2015

I was down in Anaheim last week for the annual ABF conference and it was awesome.

I got to spend the day at the convention center while Jon took the boys to Disneyland.

The only thing better than the shopping.....

Was hanging out with hundreds of other Beekeepers and filling my brain with all kinds of new information.

I didn't bring this one home...

But I did get a bunch of these!

Now I have bee withdrawal! Can't wait for spring but it'll be a couple of months before I can say hi to the girls. I do have all kinds of new ideas, information and inspiration for the next year.