Great News

I have been anxiously awaiting Spring to see how our honey bees tolerated the long, cold winter. I am happy to say that upon initial inspection, there is good activity at all 5 hives. I have begun to feed them sugar water until nectar starts flowing....a few more weeks. Once it is warmer in the afternoons, I will open up each hive and make formal inspections, checking the strength of the queen and the number of brood. At this point, if any of the hives are weak, I will order new queens. Installing new queens should help to build up any weak hives. For now, my fingers remain crossed. These hives are located at the edge of the woods across the drive from the orchard.In the next couple of weeks, we will move them across the orchard to their new bear-proof hive yard....Then in May, I will be picking up 5 more colonies and installing them in our new English garden hives. These hives will be located in a small round pasture that lies beside our main driveway. An electric wire around that pasture should act as a bear deterrent.
I spent a great deal of time this weekend painting these new hives white.

Comments

Unknown said…
We did it we have one hive. We will get our bees soon, when a Luc arrives. We live in a cold spot so we are getting the last bee order. Early May. Dh is excited and ready to be a bee keeper. I will follow your blog for inspiration, Thank you. * we do not have a bear problem, but maybe skunks...
Callie Brady said…
Such beautiful hives! Makes me want some bees. All the hives I've ever seen were the white boxes in orchards as we drove past. I hope to see some bees this year! We have to cover our chicken coop pen with anchor fencing to keep the bears out. I guess it is the little ones that can climb. Glad I found your blog. I'm bookmarking it. I was searching for info about muscovy ducks.