The Way of the Bees

It's going to take a few posts to catch you up on what me and the bees have been doing this season. Let's just say it has been a cracker of a past few months. Spring grouping yard as bees come off of almonds. The "herd" all gathers here and then gets grouped into smaller "loads" before dispersing around the Benalla area. After bees came home from almonds, we bunched all the colonies together in a large grouping yard where we made sure every hive was healthy. We started doi

The bees are off and busy pollinating almond flowers for one of the most most important events in a commercial beekeeper's season. For some of us, one quarter to one half of our annual income is generated in three weeks in August. This year, because of Varroa, hive numbers in the almonds have dropped by the tens of thousands. No official reports out yet, but I have heard of beekeepers who had contracts for 3000 colonies only able to bring 800 that met pollination grade. I

Dodging raindrops, we spent last week delivering honey, grading bees for almond pollination, and introducing a new puppy to life as a bee...

I'm not convinced that this matters, but here we are, the first moon cycle past the solstice and the bees are definitely moving. For...

Love of travel and bees is in my blood.

Zen and the art of Avant Mechanics

Winter solstice for bees