100% Local Ohio | Your Cincinnati Bee Connection
Posted in Hive Management on Oct 25th, 2011
I revved up the table saw and made three inner covers for my nuc hives, and I cut a round opening in each through which I can feed the bees their syrup. But when I opened the hives to give the bees their snug, new, inner covers, I discovered one of the hives dead. A [...]
Posted in Winter on Mar 3rd, 2010
It’s March, but it’s still cold. Too cold to open the hive boxes and check on the bees. But I sort of did it anyway. I did it because on Sunday I discovered that my friend Jim lost his second hive. All dead. And then yesterday I discovered that my friend and bee mentor Chris [...]
Posted in Winter on Feb 8th, 2010
Christy’s bees died, too. A few weeks ago, we talked about how worried we’ve been about our bees, and on the only nice day last week, Christy opened her hive to find a ball of dead bees. She had only the one hive—she got about 90 pounds of honey from it last summer. This would [...]
Even with the one hive of bees dead, I’m so so eager to get started with this stuff again. I’ve now got a basement brimming with pretty brood boxes, supers, bottom boards, inner covers, outer covers, feeders…and there’s nothing I can do with any of it until spring…meaning March or April. Okay…I need to settle [...]
Posted in Winter on Jan 24th, 2010
It’s confirmed: We have one dead hive. Dead bees everywhere. But there weren’t as many as I would have thought…I just don’t think this colony was ever very robust. The temperature today is in the high 40s or low 50s, but it’s been raining all the danged day. So Deb and I headed out in [...]
Posted in Winter on Jan 17th, 2010
Posted in Winter on Jan 14th, 2010
The snow outside the swarm colony’s hive’s box was littered yesterday with dead bees. I think this is normal, although there were very few bodies in the snow outside the weaker colony. I wonder if there are any bees left living in the weaker group. The weather warmed up a bit yesterday, and when I [...]
Posted in Winter on Jan 13th, 2010
Yesterday I hiked up to look at the bees in the snow. It was in the late afternoon when the winter light finally hits the hive boxes, and when I stooped to peek in the entrance a little bee flew out. I was so happy to see her! She flew out into the woods, and [...]