Today is the fifth anniversary of us getting into beekeeping. The big issue this coming year is repopulating the apiary. Last Summer, Fall, & Winter were hard on the bees. We lost all the established hives. Only a tiny Fall swarm survived. She is now in a full hive and brooding up. We have one package that has been hived and one more due to arrive next weekend. I am setting out swarm traps and hoping the annual wild swarm that always passes through the yard does so again.
As it is the main flow is about to start. The Black Locust is in bloom which means the Yellow Poplars are next. The flow will hit us while the three hives have a low population. It will help the bees establish themselves but i doubt any surplus honey will be made this year. Fortunately we have enough from last year to get us through this one.
We could very well go back into Winter with less hives than last Fall. I fondly think back to two years ago when for a brief time I had ten colonies in the apiary.
Good luck to all you Beeks this year. May your bees be many and your Honey flow.
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| 5 years of wear |
We could very well go back into Winter with less hives than last Fall. I fondly think back to two years ago when for a brief time I had ten colonies in the apiary.
Good luck to all you Beeks this year. May your bees be many and your Honey flow.
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4 comments:
Great to hear you are getting ready for the season.
Could you encourage the package to build quickly with some sugar syrup?
It might help them to build up quicker?
Thanks
Gary
Hello Gary,
I wish it were that easy. The bees in this apiary, can i call two hives an apiary, almost never take syrup in Spring. The early flow here is a good one and the bees regularly abandon any syrup before it's gone. Even the new packages ignore syrup for the plentiful nectar. Which is a good thing of course.
Thank you for the comment.
5 years, does that mean you have seen it all now? *wink*
Anon,
Nah, we've just scratched the surface at this point.
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