The Golden Fox's Bees!

Just a sort of log for the adventures of a friendly neighbourhood keeper of bees, and lover of foxes. Non-bee-related posts are tagged with "not bees".

[foxthebeekeeper]

Y'all really like bees, huh?

[kingpin-of-steel-act3]

[ihatenearlyeverything]

its ok theyre Gods lil helpers

[oatmealbrain]

And boy are they clumsy

[hydrangeafae]

Hi, these bees are babies! They’re not clumsy at all, this is what is called orientation flights. After birth and before beginning their careers as foragers (as all Honey bees cycle through all the jobs in the Hive throughout their lifespan), Honey bees take short flights back and forth, to and from the Hive, to orient themselves with their wings and their home so they can learn its location and how to get back home after foraging! Everyone has to learn, these are just smol little baby turkeys. Bees use the angle of the sun for location so adults have a better and more direct sense of location than any human

[polar-solstice]

IM SO PLEASED TO LEARN THIS!!!

They are just!!! Student drivers!!! 😭

[sindri42]

BONK!

[wespenmaedchen]

European Hornet (Hornisse, Vespa crabro)

[thiscountry]

bee on basil

[jjunkyard]

[foxthebeekeeper]

Making that (bee) bread!

So I finally got the time and weather to check on the first new move-in since the mosquito spray incident a couple springs ago. Sure enough they built the new comb diagonal to the frames, but honestly I’m ok with it since the next frames are alternating plastic foundation and empty so they should straighten out nicely. That’s a good 5.5 frames of diagonal comb which as far as I can see is chock full of brood, bread, honey, and fresh perfectly centered eggs. Since it’s June and they’re still this small I’ll probably be feeding them over the winter to make sure they persist, because I really want them to stick around as the other hives still seem to be toxic to new inhabitants. (Though one of them did have a red wasp nest survive in it, and it’s so big now I’m going to leave it just because wasps are good too.)

Here’s hoping they do stick around! The tiny colony that moved in to the Super Hive was queenless so I set them out next to this colony in the hopes they merge with them. There was only one wee piece of comb with an empty queen cup so they were obviously not going to make it on their own.

[dawnforests]

[foxthebeekeeper]

Got any games on your phone?

[stark1lling]

Posting wasp propaganda because my ass is seething yo!

Update! Edited background to be lighter for better legibility, usually use grey backgrounds for artwork and forgor that it probably wouldn’t be great to read!

[oh-he-grows]

More than anything else, gardening has taught me how sweet and beautiful and unique and important wasps are

they are unapologetically my favorite bugs and I will coexist with them as long as I live

[wetheurban]

Sending love to those desperately trying to reignite their spark.

[littlealienproducts]

Felted Bumblebee Brooch by BerniFelt

[whitepeopletwitter]

[thedreadpiratejames]

the mortifying ordeal of being known by 20,000 bees

[onenicebugperday]

That’s 20,000 new friends!

[animentality]

[sealmeals]

these things are so fucking cute i cant believe it

[foxthebeekeeper]

Oh God. I keep bees as well and the little carpenter bee getting hit, along with your video with just a queen and maybe 10 of her workers with, is absolutely heartbreaking. My sincerest condolences for your loss- they're bees and maybe they can't love you back, but I know you put love and dedication and loads of time into caring for them, and it's still tragic when something like this happens entirely outside your control.

I hope it improves soon. May your remaining colonies recover and flourish.

As a beekeeper, can I ask- how do you recover from this? Will you catch the queen and try to make a split from an existing colony to save her, or is that just a wash at this point? How many colonies did you start with, and how many survived?

Started with I think 9 total including some smaller nucs, and down to the one Super Hive in the back. There’s not much recovering, besides doing a deep deep clean on all affected equipment (and leaving it out in the elements for a while) and hoping that there are some nice swarms in the spring. I’m hoping for a busy next year as far as bees go, and the super hive in the back yard has been flourishing even after they had their population cut by this event. I’m hoping maybe they have some kind of resistance to it and their swarming will populate the area with pesticide resistant bees!

[foxthebeekeeper]

I need to research beekeeping for a book I'm plotting/writing

Do you have anything to recommend like reading or watching? Obviously it's a bit different cause I don't need to know how to d o it just try understand how to do it but I thought I'd ask

YouTube is your #1 resource for sure!

Check out channels like JeffHorchoff or 628DirtRooster or even TheBushBeeMan and you’ll get a great idea of what it’s like and all the different facets of the Beekeeping hobby and profession. Best of luck!!!

[foxthebeekeeper]

The super hive is still going strong. The rest of the hives are still empty… this spring I’m making a comeback though!!!