One of the few photos of me (with a bee on my hand).
THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE ORIGINALLY POSTED.
- NOTE TO SELF: Remove insulated inner covers by the end of March.
April is way too late. So is April 16th.
Here’s a question I’ve heard a few times about the insulated inner covers we use: “Won’t the bees build a lot of burr comb over the top bars?” The answer is: “No, because the bees don’t build much comb in the winter.” But they sure do build comb once spring arrives, and you better get the covers off before the bees start bringing in pollen. You better remove any rims (or ekes) that are placed on the hives for dry sugar feeding too. We were too busy with work to remove them until today, and look what we found under one of the covers (in our one hive that happens to have follower-boards):
That’s about 3 inches of burr comb under the insulated inner cover (flipped upside down) — several large mounds of comb. It wouldn’t have been as bad if we’d removed the deep rim a couple weeks ago, but we didn’t, so it’s bad. Lesson learned.
Read on . . . »
I noticed our bees drinking dirty water last May. They seem to love the minerals from the dark composted soil in our raised garden beds. They’ve been at it again for the past few days.
Here are four and a half minutes of photos from our first 567 days of beekeeping. It’s not a “best of” collection, but it’s the best I could put together in 20 minutes (there are more photos of bees than beekeeping per se). It should look half-decent played back in full screen at the highest resolution. Recommended only for purists. There’s no music, but I originally had some Geoffrey Oryema on the soundtrack and it was good. You’ve probably never heard of Geoffrey Oryema, but he tends to make quiet night music with lots of echo. Or maybe Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass is more your thing. Whatever floats your boat.
480p, 720p AND 1080p PLAYBACK ARE AVAILABLE. FULL SCREEN MODE IS THE BEST.
These photos don’t have anything to do with anything.
THE FOLLOWING WAS LAST UPDATED ON SEPT. 21, 2011.
I’m too busy to maintain regular updates, but I have to show you this.
The darker honey in the bottom of the jar is from Hive #1 and it has a pleasantly mild flavour. The lighter honey in the top of the jar is from Hive #2 and that honey is sweeter. Hive #2 happens to be the foundationless hive, though I don’t think that has anything to do with the extra sweetness of the honey. The honey will gradually clear as the bubbles rise to the top.
Read on . . . »
THE FOLLOWING WAS LAST UPDATED ON SEPT. 24, 2011.
The moment we’ve been waiting for — for the past year and a half — happened this morning. We ate honey fresh out of the hive and right off the comb. It was a beautiful thing.
I’ll update with more info later. I’m in the middle of a major honey sugar crash at the moment.
Read on . . . »
I scraped off a large amount of burr comb full of honey from one of our nucs during a hive inspection recently. I left it on top of the inner cover afterwards so the bees could eat up the honey. This is what the burr comb looked like a couple days later.
The bees took all the honey from the comb and then began working on the comb, sealing it to the wood and creating a set for a yet-to-be-produced science fiction film.
See more photos in the Science Fiction Honey Comb photo album.
So I says to Mabel, I says…
Romaine lettuce, anyone?
I’m not sure why it is, but one or two bees are always drinking water droplets off our lettuce.
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