Monthly Archives: April 2016

Swarm Season

First, the good news: our 2 brand new hives are doing what they should be doing at this stage, drawing out comb, collecting nectar, bringing in pollen, and the Queens are starting to lay eggs. Now the bad news: Hive 1 (Queen Charlotte), our established hive that came through winter like a champ…well, a week ago this hive swarmed 🙁 Our web cam captured the moment of mass exodus, which is actually pretty amazing. It’s like rats from a sinking ship…

New Kids on the Block: More Bees!!!!

Exciting news, on the weekend we added 2 new hives to our apiary, for a total of 3! (I know what you’re thinking, you thought we already had 2 hives…sadly, we lost one to mites last fall and I haven’t been able to bring myself to write about it yet). We picked up 2 “packages” of 3 lbs bees each: The first time we installed our bees, we did it just the 2 of us.  Now, 2 years later we felt brave