I’m hosting an online bee school starting February 21st starting at 6:00 pm ET. We’ll be using Zoom for the class. And it’s FREE to attend. You can learn more and register for the class here: [ Bee School 2021 ] Registration ends when the class begins, but check back for a direct zoom link. …
Author: The Bumbling Beekeeper
Order Your Bees for 2021 (updated 3/14/21)
It’s time to order your bees for spring 2021! Here’s a list of folks I know who have packages and nucs for sale. I’ve purchased from all of these folks at least once or am personally familiar with the product.
What’s Blooming – February 2021
This is the month where we start to see the trees and shrubs coming back to life. The big bee nectar and pollen source for my bees are the Red Maples. Silver Maples will be blooming this month as well. Also, we’ll start to see Willow and Forsythia and some of the ornamental trees like …
Thinking of Taking Up Beekeeping?
2018 will be my 11th year actively learning about keeping bees and you’d think with that many years behind me, it would be getting easier to keep my bees alive. That hasn’t been the case. And if you talk to long time beekeepers (like having 50 years or more under their belt) they’ll tell you …
Oxalic Acid Drizzle
Dr. Marion Ellis from the University of Nebraska spoke at an NCSBA bee conference in 2016 and covered a couple of methods for using oxalic acid to eliminate varroa in the hive. The trickle or drizzle or dribble method is one of the ways to treat. According to Dr. Ellis, this method is applicable only …
Bee Fondant vs. Sugar Blocks
Once the temperatures start dropping, the bees will have a hard time processing even the heavy sugar syrup. So I start adding bee fondant to the hives and that works pretty well for me. A lot of people use sugar blocks, but I started making and using bee fondant after a talk by NC Master …
Getting Bees Ready for Winter
The temperatures have been down in the 30s at night so once again, it’s time to get the bees ready for winter. There’s really not a lot to do to get the bees ready. By now, I’ve removed any unused equipment and have been feeding as much as possible. I’ll start adding bee fondant to …
What’s Blooming – November through February
The weather has been dipping down into the freezing temps and there’s really not much blooming these days. At the Lazy Creek Apiary, the bees may find something of interest in the greenhouse but mostly they are staying close to home. Once the temps dropped below about 55 degrees, feeding them syrup (even heavy syrup) …
Goodbye Purdue Ankle Biters
In previous posts [ here ] and [ here ], I talked about how my Purdue Ankle Biter bees like to rob from dying neighborhood hives that had been infested with varroa mites, and then would bring mites back to their hive where the virulent mites would destroy the hive. I had been doing sugar …
What’s Blooming – October 2017
The white aster are finally in full bloom and with the recent rains, the bees seem to be bringing in nectar for their food stores. They’ve been bringing in a lot of beautiful shades of yellow pollen for the last month or so, but not much in the way of nectar so this is a …