Ooh, I have a jar of what was unripened honey (pulled out out of a beehive before ready-- which happens sometimes) and it's fermenting itself into alcohol. Natural yeasts apparently are converting it into mead. Wonder how it tastes. 🤔 #beekeeping#mead
Checked out a beehive today that went from 4 frames on April 21st to 10 extra full frames today.. they are in growth mode right now here in my part of Southern California. Producing honey, too. #bees#beekeeping
My backyard bee swarm countdown has restarted. Removed a captured swarm from behind my shed. Last swarm took 1.5 weeks to show up due to the marine layer. The prior swarm it was 2 days from removal of the prior hive. I already lost count of how many bee swarms from the backyard this year... at least 7... #beekeeping
Had a visit with the 15,000 to 20,000 bees that showed up in my backyard yesterday. Moved them into a bigger box. They seemed friendly enough (did this without smoke, and they were fine with it). 4.5 frames worth of bees, which is big. Going to have to move them offsite here quickly since there are so many (we are essentially catching/moving/catching/moving swarms every week here from out back). #beekeeping
Approaching the annual "running out of beekeeping equipment" date. 😬
(Bees follow the rule of exponential growth and decay: you either have WAY TOO MANY BEES or NOT NEARLY ENOUGH BEES -- in spring they grow by the power of two or more, but they also tend to drop in half in winter). #beekeeping
Hmm, they mention using pheromones and a swarm of bees as a "radical idea" to attack enemies for the military in "The Men Who Stare At Goats", LOL. (It would work, but you can't cart around beehives, really) #beekeeping#movies
This is a nice cool apiary to work in. It faces south but is in dappled shade. After the flat area there is about a 40ft drop through oak trees to the valley floor #beekeeping
Yesterday I did move a frame almost full of capped brood, honey, pollen, and bees into the 'empty' hive.
This morning there were guard bees doing their thing and really checking over any bee that showed up, there was robbing yesterday from the feeder dripping and running out the entrance but nothing serious. I reduced the entrance to make guarding easier and noticed some pollen coming in which was surprising.
Mercury News: When bees swarm in the Bay Area, who you gonna call? These heroes. Inside the daring, ultra-competitive work of the beekeepers who race to collect loose swarms.
In today's bee drama, there are two separate group of bees attempting to claim an empty box we set up to capture any new swarms here. Their advance parties spent several hours playing "King of the Hill" (err..
Queen of the Hill) and wrestling each other out of the box. Too cold for a swarm to fly in, but not too cold to have a bee battle! #beekeeping
There are few food combinations closer to the source and local than avocados mixed with honey produced from the blossoms of the exact same avocado trees... #avocadoes#honey#food#beekeeping
Removed captured swarm of bees from my backyard... So the "bee swarm showing up" clock gets reset. The question now is now long until the next swarm... 24 hours? 48 hours? Longer? (there does seem to be a bee swarm portal back there--thus, how we got into beekeeping). #beekeeping#beemudatriangle
New 5-frame nuc picked up & installed yesterday. We've also relocated the location of the colony/hive to the garden area where it is easier to get to & it is warmer in the winter. Now I'm going to research & learn all about treating for mites. #beekeeping#beginner#bees 🐝🐝🐝
Very odd, the bee swarms around here have shifted from moving into hives exactly around noon for the last few years, to arriving between 3:30pm and 4pm. 🤔 #beekeeping
Cleared the backyard of swarm of bees. Plus swarms from last week. Now the question is how many days it will take for another one to show up. (last year, it was usually 24-48 hours before a new swarm of bees would reappear). #beekeeping