Bee Harvest: We harvested last weekend. We used a new beekeeping method this year. We started in the spring with our two hives from last year. We split them and added two new queens to the mix, bringing us to a total of four hives this summer. (Technically, two "horizontally split" hives with four queens, but I think that's just to make it sound ( Read more... )

Home safe and sound from the Missouri Beekeepers Conference in Jeff City. What a wonderful time we had! Friday afternoon held some terrific lectures. The banquet last night was a little odd (most of the people at our table weren't beekeepers, but in the apiary insurance business--very weird), but the food was fantastic. All the recipes used honey. ( Read more... )

Went to a terrific meeting tonight at the Three Rivers Beekeepers. No relation to the Barony. Crazy naming coincidence ( Read more... )

Our first hive is no more. It has failed, and all the bees are gone. Wax moths took over, and the colony wasn't strong enough to push them out.

Wax moths, like vampires, hate sunlight. We dismantled the hive and placed it in direct sunlight on our patio. No more moths. But the damage has been done.


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Nope. I'm not making this up. St. Charles County is forming a club for beekeepers. Their first public meeting was tonight. I heard there was going to be a gathering, so I went to check it out ( Read more... )

Last Saturday David and I did a quick hive check to make sure the queens in our two new hives were doing well. First one looked great. The workers had eaten through the candy plug in the end of the queen cage to release the queen. We even saw her. Lots of wax foundation and honey and pollen stores were going in. All hunky-dory ( Read more... )

Yesterday, David and I ran home over lunch to check the new hives. I had messed up on installation, and left too much space between the queen cage and the next frame, and the bees had been busy as, well, bees, and filled in the space with a big chunk of beautiful comb that we had to rip out ( Read more... )

On Saturday, I installed two new hives in our backyard. David was on a men's retreat at our church all weekend, so I installed without him. (When the bees arrive, you can't just stick them in the basement until you feel like getting around to putting them in the hive.) I'm very happy to say that Duncan the Brave had my back, just in case. Let's ( Read more... )

David and I built two new hive boxes, and I've painted them and given them time to dry and air out. And I've put a few embellishments on the outside--sort of for me, but the bees need a way to tell which is their particular home, so the decoration will also function as an identifier for the worker bees ( Read more... )

Today was the second gorgeous day in a row, and the bees were out in force to take what I'm sure were much-needed cleansing flights. The next few days are supposed to be lovely, too, so they'll get to fly around outside a bit and relieve themselves. Hurray ( Read more... )