Wrong Hive!

Posted by on May 20, 2013 | 0 comments This past Saturday I was reminded once again on how fragile the world we live in is, and in particular, how quickly things can go wrong in the apiary. I had just cracked open the cover on the last hive I intended to split in our home apiary. It was a robust Italian colony with a very prolific queen, that badly needed splitting. After pulling a frame of honey on the edge of the broodnest in the...
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Spring = Busy Bees

Posted by on May 11, 2013 | 0 comments Spring time is the busiest time of the year for beekeepers here in Michigan. Beginning in March we go through our apiaries and cleanup any dead outs (e.g. hives that didn’t make it through the winter.) Once again, we were fortunate this year in that we only lost approximately 10% of our colonies, not bad given the nationwide average this past winter was around 31%. We did enter the...
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Cabin Fever

Posted by on Feb 23, 2013 | 0 comments Winter was late in coming this year, but once it arrived you couldn’t miss it!   This morning I was reading the weather outlook in the Michigan Farm News (written by Jeff Andressen the meteorologist with the MSU Extension) and if they have it right, the recent upper air troughing pattern across the Great Lakes will soon be replaced by a southwesterly pattern which will provide an extended...
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It’s a Drones Life!

Posted by on Dec 28, 2012 | 0 comments Winter was long in coming here in W. Michigan. We still had some very temperate sunny afternoons in November. On one of those afternoons I visited one of our apiaries to see how the bees were faring. There were a few bees flying, gathering water from a nearby low spot on the edge of the field. As I watched them arriving and leaving at the hive entrances, I noticed this drone bee lying on his back...
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Swarm Craziness

Posted by on May 6, 2012 | 0 comments Swarming season is in full swing here in W. Michigan. Friday morning while working in our own apiary I witnessed a couple of swarms taking off, even though our colonies have all been split. Some have been split into three, but that didn’t stop those old queens from taking off. I followed them both across a very muddy corn field, but gave up after they crossed over a really wet spot. One of...
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