AC's Bees

10/06/2024

September 21, 2024: A busy day of productivity under the sun! We diligently dug, weeded, hatcheted and levelled a sturdy brick base for the Palazzo (brown lidded) hive, relocating it about a metre to the left.
This is the first time we’ve attempted to harvest honey solo! We carefully used an air blower to clear the bees from the upper honey supers' frames. We left empty boxes nearby for the bees to reclaim and recycle remaining honey, comb or propolis. Entrusting our frames to John at Oxford Honey yielded a promising 20-30 pounds. Initially, we anticipated none! John also shared his expertise on processing substantial honey harvests. Our conversations with fellow beekeepers continually fuel our understanding and interest!

10/06/2024

September 14, 2024: Honey and hive check! There’s a lot of capped honey and the boxes are HEAVY! We spoke to John at Oxford Honey and he’s recommended we take the top box off in preparation for winter and assures we’ll still have a lot of food for the bees. They may even swarm next year.
We also discussed our slanting Palazzo hive (brown lidded hive), and he agreed that it should be fixed before the winter. Fixing the slant means building a new flat base on the hill at the current location and completely dismantling and replacing the hive, box by box.
It’s also time to harvest our liquid gold. This is our first time doing this solo! Next weekend will be a big one!

10/06/2024

August 13, 2024: Our bees are thriving! The honey flows and frames fill up, a stark contrast to last year. With two supers on, we must plan for winter. Seeking advice from mentors and fellow beekeepers will ensure we make the most of this surplus. Their experience and willingness to share knowledge are invaluable. The abundance of propolis is a bonus, boasting antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal properties. This natural marvel has far-reaching benefits, from health remedies to craftsmanship. Beekeepers know that without the right tools, propolis would hinder hive investigation. The Palazzo hive's unique characteristics, like spider returnees and diligent guard bees, remind us that every hive holds surprises. Beekeeping's dynamic nature keeps us engaged and curious.

10/05/2024

July 22, 2024: Time to add another honey super! The bees have almost filled the first super. We planned to leave all the honey for the bees but it looks like there will be more than enough for them to get through the winter. Beekeeping can be so challenging in this area. We haven’t had any make it through the winter for a couple years now. Various factors including pesticides and mites, fluctuating temperatures and then last year’s robbery all play a role.
The farm is also flourishing. A new calf, named Cocoa is ready to be brought to the calf barn Following our every step, the orange kitties are as playful as ever.

10/05/2024

June 15, 2024: Amazingly, despite the delayed bee nucs, it's already time to add the honey supers, marking a significant milestone in our beekeeping journey. We've placed a queen excluder, a screen that ensures the queen stays below, allowing the top box to be reserved for honey production. Thanks to our (now retired) mentors, the frames in the super box already have drawn-out honeycomb, allowing the bees to store honey immediately. Although the Palazzo hive has faced challenges, including rain-induced slanting and unwanted jumping spider residents, our intervention has secured its thriving status, a testament to the resilience of nature.

10/05/2024

June 8, 2024: Our hives are flourishing! By choosing a south-facing location with cover and nearby water, we have an ideal environment. Witnessing dark capped brood cells and light capped honey cells after just a week is truly amazing! The bees' gentle nature makes our work easy and peaceful. With an abundance of flowers and adorable, orange kittens following our every step, our time here is special. Goose Goose's nurturing instincts shine through as she guards her calves and kittens and gives us a nibble if we get too close. Every moment on the farm is a celebration of life and happiness, knowing our bees are thriving!

10/05/2024

June 1: We cleared a spot for our new bee yard out at Farquhar Farms. Picked up two nucs from John at Oxford Honey. Since everyone lost so many bees last year, they didn’t have as many queens as usual. So one of our queens was actually shipped from Italy. She was marked with a green spot on her back so is easy to identify. We named her hive, “Palazzo”. The other queen was one of John’s. We named that hive, “The Grail”.

10/10/2023

Dear friends,
Unfortunately, we had a terrible incident with our bees.
Last week in preparation of honey harvest, we placed bee escapes in our 5 hives and waited 48 + hours. When we checked the hives, all 7 supers were empty! There was evidence of bee robbing with dead bees and wax residue in the bee escapes.

We're so upset at this disaster and are dealing with the loss. When we have new nucs, they sometimes make only enough honey for themselves to get through the winter. Bee robbing can happen for a variety of reasons when colonies begin to struggle. Perhaps the invading bees' queen died unexpectedly, or their hives are overcome by Varroa mites. As their population decreases, foragers from other colonies begin to test the limits — “Can I get inside this hive?” Eventually, the ability of another hive to defend itself is overcome by the persistence and sheer numbers of the interested foragers. Then they honey robbing begins. Bees are opportunistic and if they have the chance to grab a large, easily accessible bounty of honey from another hive, they will do it in a heartbeat. In the early autumn, the population of bees is still quite large (though starting to shrink) and available flowers are beginning to dwindle away. This is, again, a recipe for desperate foragers who will quickly take advantage of “easy” access to food. We do not know where the other hives are, that robbed our hives.

We have started to feed lots of sugar syrup in feeder units every few days. The bees should collect and cap this for their winter stores. We also treated each hive with 2 chemical strips each to kill any potential Varroa mites.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. We talked to John at Oxford Honey. He said there were other beekeepers experiencing bee robbing and poor queen bees so we are not alone. It sure is a challenge to keep bees in our area.

We will winterize the hives in early November. We need to keep the chemical strips in until the end of October. The one small super box had uncapped honey in it, and we fed that back to the bees.

Thank you for your support this year, hopefully next year will bring a bounty of honey.

09/11/2023

Late-August visit to the hives! Honey harvest late fall. 🍯 🐝

08/30/2023

08/30/2023

Mid-August visit to the hives. We have a bonus WILD HIVE! A swarm found some of our extra hive boxes and decided to move in.

Swarming is a natural process in the life of a honey bee colony. Swarming occurs when a large group of honey bees typically composed of one queen and thousands of worker bees, leaves an established colony and flies off to establish a new colony, essentially creating two from one. When the colony determines conditions are right, the swarm leaves the hive. Before flying to its final destination, it will first gather close to the hive, often on a tree branch, fence post or other nearby spot. The swarm typically stays in this temporary location from a couple hours to several days, which is when they are often spotted by passers-by. While the swarm is in this temporary location, scout bees are out searching for a suitable location for the colony to take up more permanent residence. Once the new location is identified, the swarm will depart and fly as a group to the new location.
We also learned how oddly satisfying it is to clean old honey frames, celebrated a belated birthday and popped by Farquhar Farms to visit Auntie Sonya and the animals!

08/10/2023

08/10/2023

July 8:
Opened up the hives to observe the development of the colonies and add some honey supers. (A honey super consists of a box in which 8–10 frames are hung to store honey).
Honey bees collect nectar and store the processed nectar in honeycomb, which they build on the frames. When the honeycomb is full, the bees will reduce the moisture content of the honey to 17-18% moisture content before capping the comb with beeswax.

Honey bees are social insects, which means that they live together in large, well-organized family groups. Social insects are highly evolved insects that engage in a variety of complex tasks not practiced by the multitude of solitary insects. Communication, complex nest construction, environmental control, defense, and division of the labor are just some of the behaviors that honey bees have developed to exist successfully in social colonies.

We noted the distinctions in each hive- how much brood were laid, how many capped honey cells there were and we also noticed how each individual hive seemed to have its own separate personality and characteristics. The bees reacted to us and the process of investigating their hives in different ways. One hive took longer to settle back after we’d added a super, another was very laidback and easy to handle, and another just buzzed around until we’d added the super then happily went back into their new roomy home.

08/03/2023

On May 27 we installed our new hives! We pried the wood lids off the nucs and moved the frames one by one into the hive boxes ensuring they all went in, in the same order.

11/26/2021

Check this out:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211122-bee-gold-why-honey-is-an-insect-superfood

From pesticide detox to increased longevity, the benefits of the sweet stuff for bees go well beyond simply nourishing the hardworking insects in the hive.

11/10/2021

Dear friends,

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your overwhelming support! Our honey is now officially sold out for this year! We will be winterizing the hives in the next couple weeks to help the bees stay warm and cozy for the winter.

11/02/2021

Honey Prices:

375 g Honey Bears: $7.50
220 g Jars: $5.00
185 g Jars: $4.00
28 g Tasters: $1.25 each or two for $2.00
Larger sizes available upon request!