BG's Bees

08/12/2023

Interesting how the blooms from plants we humans seem to dislike are often the best nectar and pollen producers for the bees! Burdock is one great example ... 🐝

08/12/2023

It's READY! 2023 honey crop tastes amazing.🐝🍯🍯

06/23/2023

Look (closely) at these two hanging out together on the milkweed!

05/21/2023

Inspected our 8 colonies yesterday and saw rapidly expanding populations across the board. Five of the eight will be ready for honey supers to be added by June 1. This is one of those colonies. Queens are laying a lot of brood, and we don't see any sign of any of the colonies thinking about swarming. Healthy, happy bees. 🐝

05/16/2023

Drinking up some dandelion wine ... 🐝🐝

05/14/2023

Honeybee housekeeping! I love how honeybees work so hard to keep their hives clean. Yesterday we added a second box of brood frames to this growing colony. Many of the frames from winter had dead bees wedged tightly, one bee per cell, into the combs. If you try to tap the frame on its side, it's very difficult to knock the dead bees free without breaking the combs. The very best way to have the dead bees removed is to let the bees do it themselves. Within an hour of placing the new box of frames, the workers were hauling the dead bees out of the hive, and cleaning the combs, prepping them for brood rearing and nectar and pollen storage. There is one right at the start of the video (from the bottom entrance) and one at the end ... Fun to watch them work!!🐝🐝

05/13/2023

This tree is abuzz with honeybee activity. Turn up your volume and listen closely and you might be able to hear them, despite the loud oriole songs! It's a happy time to be a honeybee.🐝🐝

05/03/2023

A favor for the honeybees and us beekeepers, if you would please consider ... Dandelions, depending where you live, will be blooming soon or are already. Please, if you are going to put down dandelion killer, do so well BEFORE they bloom so that the many pollinators that rely on dandelions do not have to ingest herbicide. And consider No Mow May! Go fishing, play golf, plant your vegetable garden. Let the lawn go, let it grow. You are doing nature a favor. Thank you for your consideration!!🐝🐝

03/27/2023

Hope springs eternal! A sunny March day for all of our BG's Bees survivors to take a well-deserved flight. As we stand today, we've lost 7 of our 17 colonies from this past fall. Happy with more than 50% survival, especially after a really brutal 21-22 winter where we lost almost all of our colonies. Friday morning it was nice enough that we could crack open all of the colonies for a couple of minutes, quickly clean the bottom boards of dead bees, add a nice frame of honey and feed to those who needed it, and insert mite treatment across the board. In a couple of weeks we will add pollen patties and, when the temps finally sustain at 50 degrees, we'll give a gallon or so of sugar syrup to all of the colonies as well. And before you know it, the maple and poplar trees and p***y willows will be blooming, providing pollen and nectar of their own. Eight queens will be arriving from Iowa on May 1, we'll split all of the big colonies and hopefully have 6-8 nucs that we can sell. By June the honey supers will go on and the new crop will be rolling in. That's a good thing, too, because we are sold OUT of honey from last year's small crop. Thank you to all of you, our customers. Here's to melting snow and blooming flowers!!

01/07/2023

Interesting news ...

The United States Department of Agriculture has approved the first-ever vaccine for honeybees to prevent American foulbrood disease, a fatal bacterial disease that can destroy honeybee colonies, officials say.

12/23/2022

Two days ago we put our ear a couple of inches from each of the hive entrances, and, lo and behold all 12 of the bigger colonies are alive and humming. We didn't open the boxes that contain the small nucleus colonies ... just too cold out. When it warms into the 30's we will have a quick look and maybe slide a small winter patty high-carb treat into each of the colonies. Merry Christmas to you and yours from Bee G's! 🐝🐝

12/06/2022

The 🐝🐝🐝 remind us all the time how important our environment is to us all. That’s why we really appreciate every glass honey jar that is returned to us for re-use … Thank you! ♻️