This past week this past week, temperatures have climbed above 90oF causing a phenomenon known as “bearding”.  Honeybees have a remarkable set of tools to regulate the temperature inside the hive.  The ideal temperature for raising brood is 94oF to 96oF.  When the closed hive sits in the sun on a hot day, without action… Read more

May 21 Update This past week we reconfigured the brood area to make more space for our new queens to lay.  On hive 1, we moved the medium super that was in the brood area above the queen excluder and added a deep box of foundation.  For Hive 2, we added a second medium super… Read more

Things have improved significantly from last week.  We now have new queens in both hives.  We are expecting to see new eggs and larvae when we do a full inspection next week, weather permitting.  Being queenless during the middle of the main honey flow allowed the bees to fill the brood nest with nectar.  To… Read more

Well, we waited too long to make the splits and both hives swarmed. In trying to allow the bees to build up as large a colony as possible in advance of the main honey flow, we carefully monitored how much available space there was in each hive and worked to make sure the bees had… Read more

(update from April 28) Despite our best efforts to balance hive build up and swarm prevention, it looks like we are going to need to split Hive 2 to keep the bees from swarming.  The way this works is we essentially perform a controlled swarm, rather than let the bees do it on their own.… Read more

(Update from April 21) Friday was a day for a quick inspection and walk around the property. We continued to see Celandine Poppy and Common Violet in bloom. Weather was warm and there was a lot of activity at the entrances of both hives. Hive 1 has drawn out 7 frames in their honey super… Read more