Remember the swarm that stayed in a tree for four days before I retrieved it seven times? Well, yesterday—eleven days after it moved into the bait hive—I recalled that the top brood box was missing a frame. I decided to put one in there before the bees filled the empty slot with comb attached to […] Read more
This post, bound to be wildly unpopular, is a reminder about Varroa mites. At this time of year, when colonies are large without a mite in sight, it’s easy to underestimate them. But like a terrorist cell, they work in secret. They know their time will come. During spring build-up of honey bee colonies, the […] Read more
What every bee needs is a good watering hole, and the bees at the Oak Creek Center for Urban Horticulture in Corvallis, Oregon have the fanciest one I’ve seen. Water comes in through a drip irrigation-type system. The hose from the source runs up the side of the structure and through the middle of the […] Read more
Here is a photo that perfectly illustrates the concept of backfilling. You can see that the frame once contained brood in the center with an arc of nectar above and to the sides. But now, most of the brood has emerged and the empty brood cells, which are slightly darker, are being filled with nectar […] Read more
Part way up the ladder I stopped. The cardboard box I carried kept catching in the branches. The box was too big—I knew that—but I liked it because it was deep. I was hoping it would restrain the swarm longer than a shallow box. Standing on the ladder was not the best place to try […] Read more
It was a Sunday morning, exactly nine days after I split my top-bar hive with a Taranov board. I finished answering e-mails before I walked outside and headlong into a frenzy of darting, diving, dipping insects that were coalescing in a tall Leyland cypress. I wandered into the midst of the chaos, curious why Leylands […] Read more
Piggy-back plant, also known as youth-on-age, is a delicate little woodland plant in the saxifrage family. The species, Tolmiea menziesii, is native to the Pacific Northwest coast where it grows in moist forested areas and along streams. It is often accompanied by red alder at low to middle elevations. At the base of the heart-shaped […] Read more