January 2026 Newsletter

January 2026 – Newsletter
(Laura Winters – Birds and the Bees Apiary)

Over the past month and a half, my business partner Rex and I have been busy preparing for the upcoming season.

We’ve assembled new hive equipment, including medium supers and deep boxes, then applied a coat of primer and paint to protect and preserve them.

We’ve also ordered new frames and have been waxing the foundations by melting honeybee wax in a turkey roaster pan and rolling it onto each foundation with a sponge roller. This process helps the honeybees begin building on fresh frames right away.

In addition, we’ve started vegetable seeds indoors and started certain tree varieties by cuttings and seed – both to support our honeybees and for personal use.  Shown in the picture are Mexican Buckeye saplings grown from seed.

While making rounds to different property yards we’ve been checking on our colonies. We’ve continued using the mountain camp method, which involves placing a sheet of newspaper over the frames and adding about two pounds of sugar on top. This provides an emergency food source in case the bees begin using their fall honey stores. In some cases we’re noticing colonies are consuming all of the sugar within about a two week period. We will continue providing the honeybees with mountain camp method until we start noticing more flowers in bloom to provide a natural food source for them.

Watch soon for our “Introduction to Beekeeping” classes.   These are a half-day class – with classroom time where we cover the bees, gear, protective equipment, and more – then we spend time inspecting the hives.   Click here for more info.