Monthly Archives: April 2013

Three in three days

Just captured swarm #3 from our hives, as large as the first (basketball?).  Found a dead virgin queen that was being balled.  Hopefully that wasn’t their only queen… And then there were 12.

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Swarm 2

Yesterday morning I was back tending to the big swarm from the previous post, moving the remaining clustered bees to near the box entrance.  Just as they were all going in, I noticed an unusual number of bees in the … Continue reading

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Swarm!

Although we had four swarms take up residence in our bait hives last year, I’ve never actually seen a swarm of bees.  That had to change sometime… Our friend Eva spotted this swarm not far from our apiary this evening, … Continue reading

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And then there were nine

So much for our plan to keep five colonies without splitting.  We are now at nine (seven hives + 2 nucs), which is the most we can have without buying more nucs, tops, or bottoms.  Today’s break in the rainy … Continue reading

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On religion

This blog has attracted some new readers who think I write about bees.  In fact, I write about whatever inspires passion and thought at the moment, and I’ll admit that I’ve been pretty passionate about bees for the past couple … Continue reading

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Mount Jefferson erupts…

Mount Jefferson is a volcano in the Cascades, the second highest mountain in Oregon.  It last erupted about 40,000 years ago and is thought to be extinct.  What then was going on this morning? In a semi-annual phenomenon of geometry, … Continue reading

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Juggling queens

The mean hive (#3) has settled down a bit, despite being queenless now.  I think they were planning to swarm imminently when we inspected on Sunday and were very irked at being interrupted. Our goals at this point are to … Continue reading

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Bees into April

It’s certainly an early spring compared to last year, but it seems like most of our hives are “ahead of the curve” so to speak, and we’re already playing catch-up to head off their swarming instincts.  In the diagrams below, … Continue reading

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