November was busy for me. The first weekend was occupied with the Women, Food, and Agriculture Network conference. The second weekend was occupied with the Iowa Honey Producers Association annual meeting. Upon return from the annual meeting, I spent the very next day winterizing the hives. I took the first step of assembling a wind break a…
Out of all my hives, this one package from California always seems very active compared to its peers. Here you can see that the bees have moved up (they never seem to go back down) and started eating their emergency feed. The “tissue paper” at the upper left hand corner is the wrapper from their winter patty.…
I drilled holes in a few hive bodies last year. This serves as winter ventilation in the upper boxes — moisture is a killer for a hive during the winter. I do a few other things to prevent moisture from building up, but was reminded of the ventilation holes yesterday when I saw the photo…