2020 Beekeeping

Two of my favorite beekeepers, Mel Disselkoen (my mentor) and Chris Barnes from Dadant. MBA 2019

Spring 2020, note the 2 wood nuc boxes. This spring I ran out of Jester EZ nucs and started using these wooden nucs that a fellow beekeeper made me.

A fair amount of my beekeeping time is loading and unloading beekeeping supplies! This past summer I was blessed by another beekeeper to use his honey supers. Because I do ample amounts of splitting I don't often make a lot of honey but the summer of 2020 changed all that.  I still made splits but because of a glorious summer with little rain and a June with the most amount of sun on record in Michigan, the girls went crazy and we also made way more honey than usual!

Helps to have a beekeeper friend with a wood work shop and a hubby who'll lend a helping hand.

This yard is one of my favorites.  In a constant state of change between splitting and moving things around. This yard actually had horrible mating percentages this year. Not sure if it was the dragon flies or what. The May splits were at like 50%, however July matings were 90-100%. Just goes to show never judge a yard based on one season only!

Basswood Bloom, need I say more?

Mentor and friend getting some grafting done!

What happens when you forget the 10th frame in a 10 frame box! I ended up putting a 10th frame in and leaving this beauty on top of a queen excluder so the capped brood could emerge and then retrieving it 2 weeks later.

Spring nucs.....not sure I'll ever do this configuration again. It was going to be cold so had them side by side but had entrances open every other box alternating sides. Did not go well... poor mating percentages.

 A new yard getting setup at sunset. So thankful for landowners who are willing to have bees on their property!

The perfect Honey bee rainbow.

Spring nucs ready for pick up.

Spring nucs with newly mated 2020 queens ready for pick up.

My son brought me to a field of red, white and blue flowers that had been planted in memory of their son, a fallen soldier. Poppies and Bachelor Buttons populate the landscape. The honey bees seemed to enjoy the Bachelor Buttons.

Wild Blackberry bloom. Notice the cream/tan pollen on the bee's corbicula.

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Mating Nucs

Honey bee on Borage. I so need to plant more of this stuff!!

Honey bee on Lespedeza, Beautiful cascading pink blooms. Late summer.

Festooning.....possibly one of my most favorite Honey bee activities!

Fall feeding. My July starts always get feed the last half of September. Notice the Goldenrod bloom. I like to feed while there is still forage out there for the bees. If I wait till all forage is gone, feeding can really increase the risk of robbing.

Nice looking little 5 frame nuc ready to go!

Chive love.

OTS Queen making some beautiful brood patterns!!!

New yard set up. Thanks land owners for not mowing this. Honey bees, hummingbirds and bumbles were all very active on these flowers.

Brood frame from top to bottom and side to side!

Bees like their honey too! This was on a bridge comb between the boxes when I separated them for an inspection.

Summer time.

Honey super time. I have all 10 frame equipment. My friends honey supers were 8 frame. This was still do-able by placing a shim over the open area on the 10 frame. They propolised it down no problem.

These are dead bees :-( so sweet and peaceful in their comb. This piece of comb had fallen off the frame when I was knocking of dead bees in the snow. They really packed themselves in.

Dead honey bees in their comb during winter after being knocked off a frame by me while cleaning out a dead out. I like to clean out the hives right away when I find a dead out and do an autopsy as soon as possible. It is better to do it right way as you can find more clues as to why they died and leave less  work for the springtime.