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First year in Yorkshire, started with two nucs, and neither has done brilliantly. One's covering about four frames of bees with a laying queen and a mediocre pattern. The…
Third year, four hives in the North Carolina piedmont, and we're in that ugly gap before goldenrod really opens. My neighbor (lovely woman, endless patience) texted me a …
Second year, three hives in Vermont. I know the bees being raised from now onward are the fat winter bees that have to live until March, and I know mites had to be dealt …
Every year the forum fills up with 'is it too late to X' threads in October, so here's my pre-equinox list from north Georgia, 22 seasons in. Adjust timing north or south…
Finished a full Apiguard course on my worst hive (of five) here in the Willamette Valley and did my verification wash yesterday, three weeks after the second tray went on…
Second year, two hives in eastern Ontario. After six weeks of dearth my luggage-scale hefts are finally going UP again — one hive put on almost 3 kg in the last week. The…
Extractor's clean, jars are filling, so it's time for the annual damage report. Post your region, rough average per production hive, versus last year, and what the flow d…
Eight years keeping bees in Provence and this is new: after a long session scraping propolis off frames and boxes last week (dry, crumbly, lots of dust in the air), my fo…
Six seasons in Flanders and first time using Apiguard (formic every other year until now, fancied a change while temps suit thymol). First tray went on two weeks ago, sec…
Every August I tell this story to our club's first-years, so here it is for the forum's. Years back, during a hard Georgia dearth like the one we're in now, I opened a nu…
Second year in İzmir and I finally extracted — 19 kilos from two hives, which felt like winning the lottery. But now my borrowed-turned-bought secondhand 4-frame extracto…
Fourth year in Hokkaido, where autumn arrives early and hard. I lost a colony two winters ago to mice — found the nest in spring, a fist-sized hollow chewed through two c…
Third year, Uppsala. Inspection on Tuesday found a single capped queen cell mid-frame in my strongest hive — classic supersedure position, not a swarm-cell fringe. The ol…
Coastal humidity got me this year. Late harvest off two hives in Istria refractometered at 19.2% — right on the edge. My drier June harvest was fine at 17.5% and that's a…
Victoria, Australia — late winter turning, and the silver wattle is flowering with the willows about to break. My colonies have noticed: brood nests expanding fast on the…
Fourth year in Devon and this is the first season I've got real quantity to sell — probably 300+ jars worth. Time to stop buying jars twelve at a time from the farm shop.…
Second year, two hives in Galway, and sometime in the last month my bees turned into grouters. Every frame is cemented to its neighbours and the box. The crown board migh…
Planning winter configurations now while I can still feed accordingly. Fifth season in Małopolskie, southern Poland — real winters, weeks below freezing, but nothing like…
Third year in North Carolina, and my best hive from spring is suddenly showing a pattern that would've made me panic in year one. Instead of solid slabs of sealed brood, …
Second year, two hives in double deeps in Vermont. Supers came off last week and both hives feel lighter than I'd like — one especially, maybe 60% of what its sister weig…
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