Fall is a big threat to honey bees. Right now, yellowjackets are circling the hives by the dozens, looking for an opportunity to raid them and decimate the honey reserves and even eating all the larvae to feed their own colonies. Entrance reducers are added to the bottom entrance to reduce the entrance to a small hole, which lets the bees defend their hive more effectively.
Playing lifeguard to a bee drowning in a pool of honey:
It's looking good for the earliest honey harvests I've ever had! I'm not ready to take orders quite yet (my schedule's seriously heavy for the next week), but it won't be long!
I really need to move a hive over to another spot in the yard. Is it as straightforward as it sounds? Not really. Watch--
We're all enjoying a break from the winter temperatures here in the Midwest in early February. The bees seem to be appreciating it as well! Not a lot of food out here, but I do have some early treats for them in my yard!
Even in November in Illinois, if it's a nice day, the bees will do some chores!
Fall is here, but there's still a lot of work to do in the bee yard!
Happy #NationalHoneyMonth everyone, from me and my Martha Carpenter mite mauler bees here in my backyard! I made an additional harvest of honey at the end of August, so now I have both spring and summer harvest honey, each having a slightly different flavor due to the types of flowers that were foraged!
Ever heard of the beavior of bearding among bees?
It was a rainy Monday morning over here. But it was fun to see my newly introduced Buckfast bees not caring about the rain, foraging away. Buckfast bees are a hybrid race of bees developed (over many decades) by Brother Adam at the Buckfast Abbey in Devon, England in the early 1900s. They were developed to handle tracheal mites, which were wiping out the colonies en masse in England at the time. Buckfast bees were first imported into Canada in 1989, and have slowly made their way into the U.S. by a few select breeders. They are cold tolerant, wet climate tolerant (hence the foraging in the rain), have a lower tendency to swarm, and (reportedly) conservative on consumption of winter reserves of honey. We'll see how they pan out! But it's fun to mix up the genetics in the pursuit of the healthiest possible bees in my little backyard space.
Are you ready??? It's honey time!! See my video for details! Itemized pictures of the honey jars to follow.
Happy Independence Day! Guess what I've been doing today!