First Spring Inspection & Sad News

It’s been a long time coming, but last week Wayne finally had time to head out to our land and check on the bees.  The hive stand & hives as he found them are above.  One obstacle hurdled.  There has been some bear activity around our land over the last few years and I was [...]

Bees: DC Rescue

My sister, a resident of DC,  sent me along this link and I found it fascinating.  I’m so glad they took the time and energy to save the bees rather than killing them.  Check out all the comb!   City Bees

Bee update: Inspection and Harvest in One

It was supposed to rain early Sunday afternoon, so before lunch we headed out to inspect the hive in the backyard.  I didn’t want to disturb the girls too much, but I wanted to get a general feeling for how they were doing and (if we were so lucky) to grab a frame or two [...]

Honeybees and Russian Sage

Wayne and I both adore Russian Sage and have it planted in clumps in front of the house.  I walked out the door to the car yesterday and one sage group was literally alive with bees.  It sounded like the plant was buzzing.  I stopped and sat down on the pavement for a minute or [...]

Our First Honey Harvest

Although we’ve been keeping bees for almost two years now, we’ve never harvested honey.  I made the decision when we first got bees that I didn’t want to become the beekeeper who takes honey and then is forced to feed the bees to help them survive.  We fed a lot our first year because we [...]

A car full o’ bees!

Wayne was kind enough to spend his day off wandering up to Morganton to pick up our bees and deliver them to their new home.   He borrowed my car – much easier to load things in and out of the trunk – added some cedar posts and cinderblocks for a make-shift hive stand, and [...]

Bee update: Her Majesty has returned!

Wow….it’s not often I get this excited about small white grubs… Wayne was home early from work and kindly opened the hive today.  It was my drop dead day.  My call another beekeeper in a panic looking for a queen day.  Low and behold, Wayne found larva galore.  The bees were much kinder  now that [...]

Piping!

I’m a bit late posting this, but Wayne peeked in on both bee hives last week to see if there was any activity.  In the nuc he thinks he saw eggs, but he’s not completely sure because of the light.  Nothing else exciting in there except the continued precense of lots of bees. The big [...]

Concern with Lack of Activity?

I’ve been watching our nuc carefully and am a bit dismayed to see a significant lack of activity.  The video below will give you a good idea of the difference between what’s going on in the blue hive and what’s {not} going on in the nuc. You can hear Wayne in the background…he decided that [...]

Spring is on its way

This past weekend was most lovely in our area of North Carolina.  It was 73 most of the day Saturday, sunny, and there was a warm breeze.  I walked out onto the deck and was met with a small bee gathering that had taken up residence on the outskirts of a container of water.  I [...]