My daughter’s boyfriend, Noah is interested in beekeeping and so he spent the weekend helping me – which was nice since I enjoy his company. I did my best to work on interesting projects and to allow him to observe the bees without getting stung. Nothing squelches a new beekeeper’s enthusiasm quicker than getting stung repeatedly….
Tag: Woodwork
Mini Mating Nuc – Blueprint
Mini Mating Nucs may be the most wonderful part of modern beekeeping. I say this, because so much of modern beekeeping has become completely standardized – yet there doesn’t seem to be any standardization of the mini mating nucs. This gives the beekeeper a chance to experiment and discover without reinventing any wheels. As I…
Edge of winter 2017 – Time to try again
So this is my woodshop. Ain’t it cool?! Sorry for the huge laps in blogs, I will try to do better and at least blog once a month, if not more often, from here on out. When last I blogged, things were going bad but then they got worse. My father-in-law, Dale (who was my…
Summer of 2015 Final Tally: 7-Hives
Dale (father-n-law) moving supers Hello beekeeping fans, Well, it is now the end of summer and time to tally my efforts for the 2015 year. No suspense, the answer is 7 hives. So here is a summery of this years splits. I started with 4 hives but one of those died shortly after the spring…
A Nope Snake
Nope! Nope! Nope! A few weeks ago I went to the farm where we first started our apiary and collected all of my old hives. The mason blocks I originally used had, for the most part, turned to rubble. This left many of the hives laying in the mud, accelerating their deterioration. However some…
Repairing Rotted Supers
On first inspection of my ruined apiary, I counted about 100 supers. However, I soon found out that the decade of neglect, water damage, and mice had destroyed nearly all them to one degree or another. My friend Marvin reassured me that things were not nearly as grim as they seemed and encouraged me to…
Honey Homestead 