Hampton Park Honey

08/25/2025

When a queen bee is being replaced, this is what it looks like on a frame of brood!

08/08/2025

It's a low-production year, but I did manage to harvest close to 100 pounds of honey--less than half of what I harvested last year. I am ready to sell honey to my local enthusiasts! Please be patient with me; my days are intense and I cannot get back to people as quickly as I would like. I am offering the following (while supplies last):
10 ounce jars (a few with cork lids and built-in dippers, the rest screw lid) $12
19 ounce jars with cork lids and built-in dippers $25
2 pound jars with screw lids $35
2 ounce sampler jars (not pictured)$4
I accept cash, Paypal, Zelle, and old-fashioned checks. I'll be filling orders in the order received. Thank you for your continued support of my pollinators! Please DM me rather than reply to this post; it will help keep things more organized.

07/23/2025

I'm well into July, my colony numbers are still struggling, but I got a little bit of a honey harvest. As far as how my colonies are behaving: I'm ready to feed them sugar water laced with Prozac, cuz they continue to do weird things! (Announcement of me being ready to sell the honey that I have is coming in about a week)

Between my bees killing off queens one after another, and finding a couple of colonies with two queens, I'm about ready to feed my bees sugar water laced wit...

06/28/2025

On hot days, this can happen. To many, this looks like a swarm. But swarms always congregate away from the hive. This is called bearding. When the temperatures get too high inside the hive to be safe for the developing larvae, the workers move outside the hive (leaving a minimum caretakers inside) to allow for maximum ventilation inside the hive Seeing that my other hives are NOT doing this, it's a signal that I need to do some things on my part to improve the ventilation during this heat wave.

06/22/2025

Midsummer faceplant: WHERE DID ALL MY QUEEN BEES GO??

06/12/2025

I had such a great time presenting at Fossil Ridge Public Library District yesterday! It's encouraging to see so much interest in honey bees and pollinators out there. I always go over in time.

05/18/2025

Well, my pesky hive that recently swarmed decided to go for an AFTERSWARM. Don't know what that is? Watch. At least I was around for it this time.

05/09/2025

This is how technology helps in beekeeping these days. Please see my previous video for context. I missed a swarm event, but I know the day and the minute it all happened now.

05/09/2025

It's May. I opened the hives. Got two queens marked. Some good stuff, some not good stuff going on. Looking like a poor prognosis for an early honey harvest this year. Check out the video to see how I concluded that I missed a swarm event; I'll have more evidence of that in the next video.

04/05/2025

It's opening day for beekeeping! The weather isn't good, but the bees ha e been ramping up for over a month now, and if I didn't manage them, I'd see a swarm or two by the end of the month. A mouse in my shed left me an unpleasant situation to deal with. But I also got to set up my high-tech hive today--remote monitoring!

03/16/2025

It was a good day to start assembly of one of two new hives. All equipment has a lifespan, and a couple of my oldest boxes need to be replaced. This year I purchased beeswax-dipped box panels for assembly: Not only do they look better with the natural-wood look, but they are also naturally waterproofed so that they don't need to be painted. A few foraging bees couldn't resist the wax scent and had to check out what I was doing on the driveway.

02/13/2025

Not much active beekeeping going on in February, but look what came in the mail today! I'll be stepping it up with technology when the weather warms up.