My dad was giving me a hard time when we did a hive check for taking so many photographs while we looked at the brood frames. Well, the other day I was out observing the hive and I came across a few feet of yard that was completely covered in dead and dying bees. The bee graveyard. You couldn’t even see the dirt of the ground, it was completely hidden by bee bodies. I collected a large drone that was scrambling around. At first glance, he looked normal, healthy. No tattered wings even. Once I scooped him up and took some photos of him, I saw it. A little brown dot, the size of a pinhead, on his fuzzy thorax. Varroa mites. AKA the bee version of ticks. They say when you see one, there’s a lot more where that came from. Then I re-examined the photos I’d taken the week before during the hive inspection. While I hadn’t noticed it the first time looking at the photos, this time I could pick out a mite here and a mite there. Then, the disfigured wings of a bee, indicating it had Deformed Wing Virus. Not good.

So now we are working on helping the bees rid themselves of the mites before the mite population grows and overwhelms the bees and we see a colony collapse. Natural treatment includes placing a mite catcher at the bottom of the hive (with a screen only the mites can fit & fall through, and sticky paper underneath to trap them) and dusting the bees themselves with a thin coat of powdered sugar which encourages them to groom themselves and then hopefully groom off the mites, dropping them down into the trap below.

I’ll post updates, but please wish our bees some extra strength and vitality as they fight off their mites! And taking photos during your hive inspections is a great way to document the hive health and provides you with clear references of your bees without having a time-limit or needing to worry about stressing them (except for that initial inspection), and then you can always go back and look for things you may have missed upon the live-inspection.

Photo descriptions:

1. A brood frame

2. A couple mites on some of the larvae

3. In the middle right you can see a drone with a mite on his thorax

4. On the far left and also in the center there are two bees with Deformed Wing Virus.

Open for full-res version, cus tumblr continues to screw with the dashboard res.

We’ve left the hive untouched all winter, but finally checked in today.

video here

Honeybees literally work themselves to death. When you keep a hive, you will often see a lot of bees struggling around the premises with their wings tattered, shredded, or completely gone. They’ve made so many trips out foraging, that eventually they can’t manage to fly any more. So goes the 6-week life of a honeybee, who may make as much as 30 or more trips for nectar in a single day.

This is the day we met our bees for the first time. We were eagerly waiting at our local beekeeping shop with all of the other new beekeepers, and this old man pulls up, his van stacked with boxes, each holding a colony of bees with a queen inside.

Except one or two of the boxes had opened in transit! And so he was just driving around with a bunch of bees buzzing around! I loved that he was just like, whatever, no big deal! Haha.

Fresh cut comb 💛

Home Brewed Honey Beer 🍻🍯

Guard Bees, standing with their booties in the air to fend off enemies.

capped combs and our beautiful lady bees

made a few lip balms with our extra wax from the honey harvest

Bees love Borage

Yesterday the bees swarmed. Half of them left the original hive and filled the backyard (ours and both neighbors on each side of us) in a big buzzing cloud. Then they settled into a big clump on the tree in the neighbor’s yard.

It would have been better to have been proactive and set out a lure for the swarm before it actually occurred, but we didn’t realize it was coming.

So we’ve set out an empty honey super we had on hand, doused in a few drops of lemongrass oil (which contains some of the same compounds found in the Queen Bee’s pheromones and so is thought to be attractive to bees searching for a new home). 

It’s raining today, so we’re hoping they’ll discover and take to it soon, before the cold rain poses any problems for them.

having a drink

always busy 🌼

Our lady bees are still bringing in that winter pollen and honey!