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?

[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!!!

[foxthebeekeeper]

Awake by the morning light

[onenicebugperday]

Striped Nomia sweat bee, Nomia strigata, Halictidae

Photographed in Singapore by budak

[inthesensethat]

[foxthebeekeeper]

You already know who it is!!!

[foxthebeekeeper]

Bees get!

2nd swarm catch of the season. Seems much slower than usual. Guess there are lots of great beeks out there catching swarms!

[notkatniss]

I love baseball

[notkatniss]

they let the pest control man throw out the first pitch 😭

[gay-jesus-probably]

I looked this up and I need you all to know that the stadium was blasting Holding Out For A Hero as the bee man was vaccuming them up with his shop vac. There's video. It's amazing.

[foxthebeekeeper]

And like clockwork, another Easter comes, and another swarm lands!

It’s a small one, but it’s my first one since the poisoning so I’ll take it.