09/01/2026
Being a beekeeper isnβt for the faint hearted!
This year I went in overwintering 4 hives and only 1 hive survived, they are at 2 locations (my house and my parents) I bought 2 packages of bees from a local beekeeper and 2 nucs from a local bee company. I was up to 5 hives doing this but with new hives comes new boxes, new frames, feeding sugar water. Feeding sugar water will help the bees draw out comb, you need comb for the queen to lay brood (baby bees) and to collect honey. You want to have 2 brood boxes full before the honey super. Any extra honey is what you get to harvest from the honey supers. Mid summer my family and I went outside and heard a loud noise and a lot of bees in the air, I got nervous and told Trent to get the kids inside. This sight is something I had never seen before, it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen but one of the saddest for a beekeeper, a swarm. One of the hives at my house swarmed so that means they are behind now. When a hive swarms it means the queen and a lot of bees load their stomachs up and leave the hive to relocate. I never did find them, now that the hive is behind that means they have to make a new queen (which takes a few weeks) this means no new bees being born and the hive will start to struggle. After a few inspections I found eggs which means there is a queen now. I was lucky enough to get a call about a swarm not far away on July 4th weekend. I have never caught a swarm before but I gave it a try, it took 2 attempts but I got them. I brought the swarm back to my house and put them in a box. A few days later I did an inspection and didnβt see any eggs so I waited a little longer and found multiple eggs in the cells. Multiple eggs in a cells makes me think itβs a laying worker (not a good thing) I called a local beekeeper to hear there opinion and it was the same as mine. I researched what to do and came up with a plan, I went out to the hive and found they had swarmed about 10 feet from there hive they were in. I was getting frustrated at this point, but I took them back to the hive and gave them another shot. I waited over a week to see what was going on inside, finally I seen cells with only one egg. I am feeding them sugar water to build the hive up for hopefully a successful overwintering. After all said and done I am currently at 6 hives, I pulled 7 honey supers yesterday from both locations, not all of the frames had drawn comb or were full of honey. I did end up with 48 lbs of honey though (I call that a success for the year I have had) I am very thankful to my parents and my husband for all the help they do with my crazy ideas.
Long story short honey is for sale in the farm stand!!
