Most of the time when one of my hives was going to swarm, they would first cluster outside of the hive similar to how they beard in the hot weather. But this hive never did that. I was working in a hive next to it when they decided it was time to go.
Category: Hive inspection
Posts related to hive inspections
What’s New in the Bee Yard?
Nectar Dearth! Whew! Is it almost over? This summer has been a particularly hard summer for my bees in terms of nectar available. Spring was amazing and my bees made more honey that I’ve seen in 14 years. I took some, but left most of it thinking there would be lots for winter. But they’ve …
How Long Can I Keep Honey?
One of the common questions I get has to do with how long you can keep honey. If it’s kept in a sealed container and not left in the open to absorb moisture, it’ll outlast you! Here’s a great article about it written by Darren Incorvaia. HONEY’S ETERNAL SHELF LIFEThat honey found stored in an …
Some Basic Inspection Techniques
This video is from the Bumbling Beekeeper Beginning Bee Class in early 2021. Here I demonstrate some techniques for inspecting the hive, some things to look for, and some things you may see that you weren’t expecting to see.
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 …
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 …
Varroa Bombs – Take Two
If you saw my post on Varroa Bombs from this spring, you read about how my Purdue hive likes to rob from a neighbor’s hive when they are sick and dying. Well, they did it again. When I did the sugar shake on this hive on June 29th, they had 2/300 varroa mites. On August …
Baggie Feeding
I have top feeders for some of my hives, but I only use them in early spring before the nectar flow or in late fall after the nectar flow. Robbing around where my hives are seems to be low at those times. During the nectar dearth when the risk of robbing is high I use …
Robber Bees
For the last week or so, I’ve been dealing with robber bees attacking my hives. Hungry bees everywhere! Not a big surprise since many beekeepers lost hives after the freeze in late March and had to replace bees. Then we had a lot of rain during the spring nectar flow, so the newly starting colonies …
Summer Mite Count Checks & Congrats Bobby!
Bobby Byrd is a new beekeeper this year and he just received his NCSBA Master Beekeeper Program Certification. So, congratulations Bobby! Bobby has been working with me quite a bit in the bee yard this spring and today we did sugar shakes on 2 of the 6 hives to check on mite load in the …