Tuesday, July 12, 2011

For those who have been wondering....

Well, for those who have been wondering why I haven't blogged.  Well, nothing is going on.. like nothing, like the bees did not survive the winter.  In reality bees do not take a lot of work, so all summer there was not much to report. 

It was great to peer at them through the window, and they build a fair amount of comb.  But by the fall they had not made enough honey that we could harvest any.  OK, that is fairly common the first year of a new colony, so we just "let them bee". 

We knew that often bees need feeding especially the first winter, but we just didn't understand when.  On a few warm days in January we saw the bees coming out, and thus thought they were doing fine.  In the very cold months we didn't want to check on them, lest we make their survival worse.  When we finally got out to really see how they were doing in March, there was no sign of them.  I guess they found a more suitable home, we didn't see any bee bodies.  We probably should have been feeding them in January.

We have been MUCH happier with our Long hive than with our Warre Hive.  That Warre hive has been a problem from the start, so I am not anxious to get more bees started n that one.  But we would like to get a swarm to repopulate the long Top-Bar hive.  We have had a couple of opportunities this summer but we have both been busy (or out of town) and just couldn't see adding to our plate.  We even opted not to grow a garden this year, which has turned out to be a good decision, since we are not, and have not been home all summer.

The hummingbird have also not returned in any quantity this year, so perhaps it is too dry for much to survive.. I think it is all in the plan!  We will have bees again, but probably not this summer, and when we do, we will write here.  Please be patient with us, and our empty hives  ;-)

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