We are excited to attend the Cistus Summer Extravaganza and we'll also be swinging by the Portland Japanese Garden.
(I updated my BeePeeker cards too. They are so cute!)
(I updated my BeePeeker cards too. They are so cute!)
  Salad greens and braising greens galore, luscious lavender, and 30-40 lbs of honey from our bees! Honey tasting time: the lighter colored honey tastes of spring clover and blossoming trees while the darker honey is deeply herbal and aromatic.
Since we allow our bees to naturally draw their comb, we use the crush-and-strain method. This not only keeps plastic out of the hive, but also allows the bees to make smaller cells which discourages varroa mites. We will not let the wax go to waste as our solar wax melter is ready to go-just waiting for the sun now. The last two images show the gorgeous naturally drawn comb with the bee girls at work. Our Golden West hygienic bees are from Randy Oliver via Rainy Day Bees. Both hives are healthy but we only harvested from the Sweinty hive this round.  Both our hives made it through the winter and seem to be going strong this spring. I feed the Hive IQ bees sugar syrup in early Feb (very warm!) and then twice more with dry sugar end of Feb and mid-March. Today's check into top box showed dry sugar left (had dumped it into the feeder) and a bit of honey in the frames. I will switch to sugar syrup next week with the warmer temperature. My early February check in the older Swienty hive showed nine frames of honey in second brood box; by the end of March the queen has moved upstairs and the top box is packed with bees, including drones, and they are bringing in loads of pollen. They have burned through most of the honey...Did a quick (2-frame) check on lower brood box, mostly empty frames and a little brood, but no visible swarm cells. Both boxes were light (i.e. short on fuel and bringing in pollen) In the next couple days I will reverse the brood boxes and plug in a frame feeder until the blackberry flow and perhaps keep them from swarming.   from Volume II of In Northern Mists by Fridjof Nansen 1911
 What is it about these little guys? The ubiquitous black-capped chickadee and the tiny bushtit have been consistent guests to our backyard feeder. Until a few years ago we had no Chestnut-backed Chickadee sightings in our backyard-these days LOTS! They all arrive in a chattering cloud several times each day to enjoy the offerings of black sunflower seeds; we also keep two cakes of chili-suet for the larger birds who, along with the squirrels, get all seeds spilled on the ground. Cheers for the LBBs.  Two at a time at the feeder-dozens of LBBs in the bushes and the Garry Oak
September musings:
We were hoping to see a little more action in Hive IQ; both hives were bringing in boatloads of pollen and we saw many orientation flights, so we had expected that both hives would be drawing comb and putting up some honey... Our Sweinty hive WAS putting up honey--but they had continued to put it into old comb and also into the plastic black frames that we use for helping them draw the comb straight. Go figure! It was time to remove the third deep on both hives, so we consolidated their stores and harvested honey: two frames of honey to share with Hive IQ and two frames for us. We added a deep syrup feeder to Hive IQ and filled it up twice. These bees also received a pollen patty to boost their stores. We left the feeder in after the temps dropped to be in place for next spring. Fingers crossed that this new hive will winter over well. We did another round of honey harvesting, this time another variation-not crush and strain, but scrape and strain-with the two 8 pound plastic frames. Not too bad! |
AuthorTracey Byrne~ 
Categories
All
Archives
July 2026
|
RSS Feed