Things are still pretty quiet in the bee yard. There isn’t a great deal to do this time of year for the hobbyist beekeeper. For the commercial beekeeper, there is plenty of work to get done. The move to California will be here before you know it. At 3:03 pm PST on December 21, we …
The robbing season is over, so now would be a good time to put a match stick under the lid to provide some ventilation. If some air is able to escape, it should help with condensation. Some beekeepers are now using telescoping lids with built in ventilation. A reminder to slope the hives forward so …
Hopefully you have been caring for your honeybees in the last couple of months, because time is running out. Winter weather will be upon us before long. Continue to feed sugar syrup, although soon enough the bees will stop taking the syrup. When they do, stop feeding and clean out the feeders. If you have …
The summer of 2015 has been a dry one. With this lack of rain, there are fewer flowers for the bees to forage from. In my travels, the hives right now seem to be full of bees and are well brooded. I’ve noticed that some hives that haven’t been fed syrup are dipping into some …
Much of the flora has begun to dry out. Some beekeepers are seeing some attempted robbing by the bees when the hive is open. This is a good time to place robbing screens on the hives. There is more of chance that robbing will occur when there is an abundance of hives in a centralized area. Robbing instinct is also hereditary.
Things will begin to dry out this month. For those in the cities, you can still rely on people’s yards and gardens. Folks in the city seem to water to some degree. For those in the rural areas, pumpkin fields will provide a good source of nectar. Also areas where farmers are irrigating pastures there will be a good nectar source from sub-clover.
