BeeKeen

10/17/2024

The sunset asked to have it's picture made with the flower patch before it frosts tonight.

08/29/2024

Proud sponsors of Sullivan East Middle soccer!

05/17/2024

Playing around with effects on my phone - just like how this one turned out.

05/06/2024

If you want to know what about 20-30 thousand bees sounds like when swarming, turn your volume up.

Thanks, Kelly Vaughan Hanby, for the clip and swarm call.

05/06/2024

Swarm #5. This one was just down the hill. Wonder who's bees they were 🤔...

Hubby did the tree climbing and put his long arms to use shaking them into the box. Thanks, my love!

These will go to Tim and Austin Keen, who want to join in on the fun.

04/30/2024

Swarm #4 has now taken residence on our hive stand in the apiary. We're making great progress! Thanks very much to our neighboring farm for notifying us of a sizable cluster on a fence post, and we appreciate the bees for selecting a convenient location for collection!

04/29/2024

Yesterday, swarm call #3 this season was for a huge cluster at bristol dance academy. Maybe they were going to brush up on their waggle dance? But alas, illegal parking in the fire lane won't do. Now they are safely housed in our apiary and I'm doing a happy dance!
Thank you Diane Keen for the call!

04/28/2024

Another successful swarm capture this afternoon. Thanks to the lovely couple who called me! And thanks to the bees for choosing a convenient place to gather -3 ft off the ground. It turned in to helping another person get started on their beekeeping journey. Everyone came away happy.

04/26/2024

The best swarm call ever!

15 minutes from home
Bees 3 ft off the ground
Soccer ball size swarm
Very docile
Went right in the box
At a gorgeous horse farm, owned by a family friend who was just as thrilled to have me collect the bees as I was
Fabulous sister volunteered to keep kiddos.Thanks!
Folks who worked on the farm were fascinated and asked all kinds of questions (what beek doesn't love talking about bees, lol)

02/25/2024

Yep, I want to look and don't want to look.
But some hives have activity at the entrance, which is always reassuring.

Schrödingers Bees

11/26/2023

This year in beekeeping in a nut shell: there are no guarantees.

Last winter we lost the (national) average of 40% of our hives. In years past, with the same preparation, we had very good success overwintering- losing maybe one or two hives. Then, over the summer we had bad luck when splitting hives and requeening. New queens have to go out on mating flights and there's risk of being eaten by birds or getting caught in weather. Many of ours didn't return, when in the past it was around 80%. Some that did return weren't well mated or never built up the numbers it takes for a hive to bring in enough excess to harvest honey- we only take what the bees make beyond what they will need to overwinter.

It was a year of learning and problem solving, which are the things I love best about keeping anyway, so there's the bright side! Bees are so elegantly simple, but simultaneously incredibly complex.

01/17/2023

Here's some drama in the neighborhood from a couple of years ago. Ran across while browsing pictures of my bees (because its too cold to open the hives and I miss them).