Days of a Beekeeper

2014 Has been a great year for us... we have been  able to replace all the bees lost during the winter of 2013, and even added to our overall colony count. The honey producing months of June thru August proved to be better that the previous 2 years.  We have been busy getting the girls ready for winter, and to do some supplement feeding to get the necessary weight for the comming cold weather... ususally  like to have the hives weight between 100 # and 150#. this will be enough food to last the winter.

This winters chores will be building new boxes to replace any that are needed, also planning on increasing our numbers to over 450 colonies for the 2015 season, and this will take quite a bit of additional equipment.

We will be attending the 2015 ABF (American Beekeeping Federation) annual meeting in California in January 2015. Will be giving a couple of talks on beekeeping, looking forward to seeing old friends, and meeting new beekeepers.

We want to say thanks to all of you that have bought our honey, we strive to have a Pure Natural product, and greatly appreciate the business.

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Looks like the cold winter has really taken a toll on our bees, have lost quite a few  colonies over this colder than normal winter, but are planning on rebuilding colonies with  more splits and packages this spring. Have been putting on sugar cakes to help them get to food more easily... The cold weather seems to be affecting the ability to move to honey frames, and the are just starving in the clusters.

As normal this winter we have been busy rebuilding equipment and making new boxes and frames. Just need to put the foundation into the frames and they will be ready for the bees this spring.

Hope that March is a more normal month for the weather, really need some warmer days so the bees can fly, and the maples with produce the pollen that the girls need to get a got shot to start the brood rearing that they need to start.

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Had a good turnout for our Beekeeping 101 Intro to beekeeping class. Was held at the Shawnee Civic Center, 15 people attended with LOTS of good questions and interest. Have provide all those that attended the event a copy of the Power point presentation as well as a copy of power point in a manual for reference.

Will be hosting the event again in March 2014 for anyone interested.

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We just returned  from the American Beekeeping Federation in Baton Rouge, La.  Was able to present a talk to fellow beekeepers on how we raise our queens.

Have been feeding some of our colonies this past month... Looks like the very cold weather the 1st of Jan was too much for some of the smaller colonies to survive those temps.

We have been talking to some of the bee breeders in California about the status of package bee's this spring.... demand is currently very high for packages, and queens for spring 2014.

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Have spent the last couple of days checking on some of the colonies that we have moved back to closer locations. It appears some are rather short on stores , and we have placed some sugar patties on them to hopefully get them thru this coming cold spell. I am sure they will need extra attention on warmer days to insure they do run short on feed.

We are planning our trip to the ABF convention, and hopefully some warmer weather in Louisana...

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