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Following up my harvest thread — I've got about 140 lbs jarred and a booth booked at our local market next Saturday. North Carolina, so I've read our cottage food / honey…
18 years in Tyrol, and the single biggest upgrade to my operation was learning to overwinter nucs reliably. Every spring loss becomes a shrug instead of a purchase. But t…
Second year in İzmir. I have about 15 kg of this year's honey and some of last year's pine honey that crystallised quite fine and smooth. A customer at work asked if I se…
Third year in Kent, four hives. My gentlest colony — the one I show visitors — has turned genuinely unpleasant in the space of two weeks. Following me across the garden a…
First year in Minnesota, one hive, and I put it somewhere dumb in May — right where the snow slides off the garage roof, which future January me would not forgive. The be…
Second year in Galway, two hives. Found several patches of bald brood in my stronger hive yesterday — capped pupae with the cappings removed or perforated, white pupae vi…
Six years in, five hives on a ridge in Wellington, and every winter I go back and forth on this. It's mid-winter here, we've had three southerly fronts in a row, everythi…
Fourth year, Texas. A friend's shed had a colony in the wall cavity — maybe 8 months established, comb from top plate down about 3 feet. Took me 6 hours. Bees are in a de…
Second year in Vermont, four hives. The little stream behind our place has dried to nothing in this hot stretch, and yesterday my neighbour (very patient, but still) sent…
Fourth year in Devon and I've finally saved enough cappings to be worth rendering — maybe 3 kg after draining the honey off. Plan is: rinse the cappings in cold water, th…
Second year, three hives in Ontario. Did alcohol washes in mid-June: 1, 2, and 2 per 300 across the three hives. Felt great. Pulled supers on the weekend and re-washed ye…
Third year in Uppsala, two hives. Sat with my coffee yesterday morning and watched workers wrestling drones out of the entrance — some getting dragged, some just blocked …
Fifth season in Małopolskie, about to extract my main crop and questioning my setup. I own an electric hot knife but honestly I keep going back to a plain serrated bread …
Third year, six hives in North Carolina, and this was my first proper harvest — pulled 11 mediums over the weekend. Sharing my lessons while the kitchen floor is still sl…
First year, two hives in Yorkshire. Did my inspection yesterday and found two capped queen cells in hive 2, both smack in the middle of the comb face, not on the bottom b…
Perthshire, seven years, and every season I read about two-queen systems producing monster crops and every season I chicken out. With the heather flow starting late here …
Istria, seven years, and this spring I finally put propolis trap mats on four hives — the plastic grids that go on top like an inner cover. The bees, being bees, dutifull…
Uppsala, third summer. Ordered a mated Buckfast queen for a nuc I was making up this week, but the donor colony threw me a curveball — found a frame of queen cells during…
Galway, second year, three hives all on screened bottom boards. I've had the sticky trays in constantly because I like doing mite drop counts, but a fella at the associat…
Quebec, five years, six colonies. Alcohol wash on my worst hive came back at 11 per 300 last week — way over threshold, can't wait for fall. I vaporised oxalic once, wait…
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