I haven’t updated my blog in a while—mostly because I haven’t really inspected my hives in a while. I ended up hurting my shoulder over the summer, which severely limited the amount of lifting I could do. Luckily, my husband…
Fit for a Queen
So, this is a bit of a long story: Earlier this year, I ordered a package of bees to replace the colony that didn’t make it through the winter. They were supposed to be ready for pickup the first week of…
The Future is Now: Beekeeping with Google Glass
So my husband recently received Google Glass through his employment. Briefly, Glass is Google’s newest attempt at wearable tech: A thing you wear like a pair of glasses but that projects email et al. on a tiny screen just above your line…
Catching Up (aka: Poor Little Bees)
So I totally slacked off in updating this blog since last fall. Figured I’d try to catch up with just the highlights before things start to get hectic again. Going into the winter, Andoria looked nice and strong; Vulcan seemed…
Robber Bees
Robbing: a sad but pretty incredible phenomenon to witness. Honeybees have a sense of smell at least as good as a dog (and are in fact replacing dogs in some bomb-sniffing situations). When you leave frames of honey sitting outside…
The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen!
Checked Andoria this past weekend. This was the hive that has had no brood at all for weeks, and the one to which I introduced a new queen last week. I was super excited to see capped brood and larvae…
Diary of a Wimpy Beekeeper
Experienced beekeepers tend to pooh-pooh protective gear (except for the veil—always necessary). Gloves make it difficult to work the bees without squishing them; bee suits are hot, bulky, and, most beekeepers think, unnecessary: the bees aren’t going to sting much…
Holy Roller Coaster, Batman
Wow, it’s been a summer of ups and downs for these bees and me! So the hive that swarmed successfully raised another queen on their own. That wait was a little nervewracking. It took a little over a month from…
Mean Girls
The ladies were mean last night. My husband was helping me move the heaviest boxes around on the hives (Note: see previous post. I’ll be moving to all medium boxes next year so I can handle them!). He got one sting…
Oh where, oh where have my little bees gone?
Oh where, oh where can they beeeeeeeee? After all the talk about this year being ripe for swarms, I still wasn’t fast enough giving my Carniolan hive more space. They swarmed. The Carniolan breed is prone to swarming as it…