#2026 bees

[beasbees]

06.24.26

And the honey keeps coming and it don't stop coming!

[beasbees]

02.13.36 & 02.15.26

I harvested quite a bit of rich, dark, wild honey from that abandoned cafe removal. I crushed it in the Hive Butler to filter the honey, but because it was such an old colony, they had old comb that was very dark and hard to crush.

Comb is like carpet in the bees' house, and they never take their shoes off lol. Multiple generations of bees will reuse the same comb over and over, causing it to darken over time.

The honey is still fresh, safe, and antimicrobial, so after passing through a few mesh filters, it's free of debris and a lovely dark golden color. It's a bit cooler today, so it's pouring slower than usual, but still moving. I'm excited to weigh it and see how much I got. The flavor is sweet, rich, and complex.

I left the comb and messy buckets out in my truck for the local bees to clean up for me. It rained heavily yesterday and it's a bit cooler and pretty windy today, but I'm sure they'll find their way to the delicious buffet soon enough. Bees will open feed on equipment like this and can have it perfectly clean in an afternoon in the right circumstances.

I'm going to try to render the comb into clean beeswax, too, but I'm not sure how clean the old stuff can get. We'll see!

[beasbees]

One of my honeybees in a squash blossom, and one of my honeybees on some lilacs.

[beasbees]

Double Removal, 03.09.26, Part 1: Front Porch Colony

I got a call to remove two colonies in an over 100 year old house!

The family had bought the property in the sixties, but the house had been there much longer. It was beautiful, but sadly essentially abandoned and falling apart. Perfect for some feral bees to move into!

The homeowner said the bees had moved onto the porch multiple times throughout the years, and he had a local acquaintance remove them for him every time. But they guy never took all the comb and resources, or advised him on how to prevent future invasions, so they just kept coming back. Someone has a very healthy colony nearby!

Sadly the acquaintance has aged out of snagging wild bees, and a second colony was located in one of the walls, so I got a call for removal.

The porch colony was surprisingly huge for how exposed they were, but very accessible and easy to remove. The wall color was a different story entirely.

I brought my poor husband along for help lol. We got a significant amount of honey from it; I recovered about a gallon, and gifted some pieces to the homeowner, and he got about 3lbs out of it!

I relocated the porch removal at my apiary., and was able to render a lot of good wax from it.

[beasbees]

06.01.26

What a great day!!

It's been a real dry spell with spring honey around here, but one of the yards has finally come through!! Hallelujah!!

Took the youngest out with me. She got to wear my suit, I had to wear my husband's lol, so I was swimming in it. But these bees are so gentle, they barely even minded when we were stealing their excess honey!!

Much to my pleasant surprise, this yard is on track. This is the high producing yard normally, but things have been so broadly difficult, I didn't expect anything for this visit. There were only two of the five colonies that needed supplementary feed!

The two on the left of the tree were the new Nucs from like a month ago. One is growing normally, very stable and strong, but the other got a second deep! They had already swarmed in fact (🤯), and they were so honey bound I took two deep frames of honey AND gave them a second deep! I left plenty of honey behind, so they didn't need feed.

The colony directly to the right of the tree had a completely full super! We just took the whole thing and switched it for an empty one. The deeps were full of other honey, brood, and TONS of bees, so they were fine too. The middle colony on the right was small, but they always have been. They're stable though, so they got feed. And the colony on the end was beginning to fill their super, but almost ALL the frames in their second deep were top to bottom full of honey! We took all but 3/10; we left one frame of capped honey and two frames with some emerging drones on the bottom of full honey frames. Their first deep was full of brood and bees and more honey too, so they were good to go.

So we got a full super and 8/10 deep frames of honey today! I'm so happy and relieved, it was starting to look bleak for the spring honey harvest lol.

We got them into the hive butlers at home, so we'll have to cut them open tonight and let them drain. Amy bets on how many lbs we have?!

[beasbees]

04.24.26

Literally just got in trouble with my husband for giving away bees lol. I'm running a BUSINESS not a CHARITY!!

I know I know. But I've been mentoring one of the students in the bee club youth program, and one of her colonies absconded, and I just so happened to have a swarm in a nuc in the back of my truck, so I gave them to her. I'm a terrible business person, I'm basically Micheal Scott. I just want everyone to be my friend 🥺

[beasbees]

04.17.26

Had a swarm removal from a water main. It was on a hilltop and during a very windy day, but it was easy to locate and secure the queen, and the bees just went marching in!

I loved watching them fan the queens pheromone around to communicate the new move 🐝

[beasbees]

A big, beautiful carpenter bee landed on my glove during the removal yesterday! I love the comparison to the honey bee next to it! Fat bee!!