It’s been a long cold snowy spell here in central Minnesota.  Beekeepers have not had a chance to crack open their hives and check on their bees because of record cold temperatures.  Temps should be at least in the high 30’s or in the 40’s, and little or no wind, before attempting to check on the your bees.  Hopefully by mid-March, we will see those temps.  And even at those temps, make inspection times as short as possible.  You don’t want to expose the bees too long and chill them.  Before you open a hive on the next warmer day, have a plan and know why you are checking (disturbing) the bees.  There are two main reasons for checking your hives this time of year.  1) Checking for dead-outs or weak hives.  2) Checking if bees have enough stored honey to make it to spring.  It’s not a time to spend finding the queen, or even pulling frames.  Bees are in a clustering mode, like a ball shape of bees, this time of year and the cluster should not be disturbed. Dead-outs are basically a hi

  Hands down, a NUC is much easier to install with fewer steps and less issues.  With a NUC it is simple.  Transfer the frames, dump in the extra bees, put the cover on and walk away.  With a NUC, at least 5 frames will have drawn out comb, the queen has not only been excepted by the bees, she has also been laying eggs for weeks nonstop.  The bees have been storing honey and pollen for raising more brood.  The colony has been established and  will grow instantly with a laying queen.  The chance of the bees superseding the queen is much less. For installing a package there are more steps, which means more to go wrong.  Package bees don’t come with frames.  So, there is no drawn out comb and normally a new beekeeper does not have drawn out comb on hand.  The queen is caged which means she has NOT been laying for days and will take a few days to start up again.  Most new beekeepers don’t feel comfortable of knowing when or how to release the queen. For these reasons, but mostly because pa

Sunday afternoon – time to blow some steam off..  Actually, I need a break from cleaning out the garage.  There is a lot of honeybee information up-loaded to the Internet daily.  A lot of it is good, most of it is true.  But I’m amazed at the amount of “self proclaimed experts” that post videos and blogs that tell you the only way to keep bees is their way.  A good  percentage of these “self-proclaimed experts” have only been keeping bees one year which, in my estimation, is not enough time under their belt to be proclaiming anything besides they owned bees for a year! This false information makes it that much harder for new beekeepers to prepare for their first bees by researching and become knowledgeable about beekeeping.   I know too well.  I put on the new beekeeper’s hat 6 years ago.  Before we ordered our first colony, I searched the internet for hours and hours, bound and determined I would learn all there was to know before the bees arrived.  Yes, I gained a lot of beekeeping k

  New beekeepers have many questions and often wonder what to do with the bees once getting them home.  The box the bees come in is not meant for long time use. Its purpose and design is for transporting bees only.  You will need to have a permanent hive all set up and ready to go before the bees arrive. I was all geared up to write this long informative post on how to transfer bees from a 5 frame NUC to a 10 frame hive body.  Then I remembered seeing a YouTube video on this.  After some research I believe there is plenty of  good YouTube videos out there on this subject. So, I decided to just post some here and maybe add my two cents and comments. It’s always challenging for new beekeepers to see eggs in the bottom of cell. But that is a good way to tell if the queen is doing her job without finding the queen. Feeding a new colony is always good, especially with just foundation with no drawn comb. The feeding stimulates the bees to draw out the comb faster. Yes, use a entrance reducer