Archives

Warming up

I know that we’ll have a few more cold spats before spring is *really* here – but here’s today’s update from the bee-yard.

After our freezes over the holidays. The 2 youngest nucs (which were rescues) did not survive the cold. The other nucs that were started earlier in the fall – doing fantastic! It […]

Heat retention in the hives

Can you guess where the cluster of bees is in each of the boxes shown? The lids in the outer two nucs are pretty thin, so there’s heat loss through the wood from the bee cluster. I’ll spend some time this week re-making some lids with thicker wood, then will wait til a warm day […]

December Honeybee Rescue

Another late-in-the-year honeybee rescue/removal performed yesterday – just as the rains and cooler weather came through. The NTTA needed the bees removed from an irrigation valve box near the Addison Airport toll tunnel.

They had called an exterminator that uses “Bees” in part of their company their name to imply that they are beekeepers. They […]

Leave them bee!

As we approach December of 2012, I wanted to remind folks that if temperatures are lower than about 75 degrees outside, then try not to open up your hives at ALL.

The only exception that I can think of at the moment would be to add fondant for feeding – and then it needs to […]

November Swarm

Late swarms sometimes happen.

I received a call Friday morning about a swarm that occurred – most likely from another beekeeper who was out of town for the day. A neighbor contacted him about a swarm that had been found in her yard – behind his home. They found them while their tree-trimmers were working […]

Winter Feeding

The bees need to be able to maintain their warmth throughout the winter to survive. That means that they need to have a ready supply of carbohydrates available to them – without my having to open their brood boxes, and allowing their heat to escape from the hive. These “candies” are placed directly above the […]

Winding down the season

It’s starting to cool off – and the beekeeping season is starting to wind down.

That does NOT imply, though, that we are done with the hive or honeybee work for the year. What’s there still to do, you may be asking yourself?

There’s lots! How about:

Feeding for strong brood through the winter Manage […]

A few leftover bees…

Hah! I received a call today from a gentleman that was referred to me by another beekeeper. He said that he had a lot of bees on the outside eve of his house – and that he’d had bees removed from a wall of his home about 3 weeks ago. I thought to myself – […]

West Nile Virus – Aerial Spraying

As if insult was not bad enough when they started spraying for West Nile Virus infected mosquitoes. Now Dallas County plans to move forward with aerial spraying of Dallas. That’s definitely adding injury to insult! (Yes – I know it’s backwards – but it’s how it is)

WNV is reported to give the same symptoms […]

Score at an estate sale

Shannon and I visited a Tyler area estate sale last weekend. I’d gone through the house – as well as the tool shed, and didn’t really see anything that caught my eye.. until we were leaving – I glanced down at a brown box.. that simply said “bee box” on it.

Of course, my interest […]