It's spring in Oregon!

Lots of emerging bees and lots of mites can only mean one thing - spring is here!  This was after a formic acid treatment.  It's pretty cool to see where the brood cluster is concentrated - all without opening the hive.  

{ this moment }

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
- from Amanda Soule
www.soulemama.com

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Gorging

Are your bees doing this right now?  Mine can't seem to get enough. 

There Are Two Queens In My Hive

This weekend my bees discovered the joys of reading Dan Savage.  I can't argue with them, I love the guy too.  But let's back up a bit...

I recently acquired the space to start a new apiary in South Corvallis.  I moved two hives from other places here last week.  This is going to be an interesting place to have bees - they grow lots of chinese medicinal herbs here, in addition to blackberries, blueberries, and tons of vegetables.  

The bees in Green (H1) have been going nuts lately.  So much so that I needed to reduce their population in the feeble hope of reducing the likelihood of swarming.  

Look how covered this one is with pollen!  

I grabbed a variety of frames from Green and put them in a new box on top of Blue, which had a smaller population (and only two brood boxes).  When equalizing hives you try to transfer as many nurse bees as you can, spray them a bit with sugar syrup, and separate this box of strangers from their new colony with a layer of newspaper.  By the time they chew through the paper they should be fairly acclimated to the smells and order of their new hive.

Hence Mr. Savage is in my hive, probably having his face chewed on by hundreds of bees as we speak.  He has probably written about bee fetishes, don't you think?

Green and Blue have cute apiary buddies now, too...

Eye candy.

Here is one from yesterday in the Goodnight hive. More luscious than I can describe, and why Italians will always have a place in my apiaries. I swear she was marked though...

And again...

Here's another one, I'm just so excited!  The bees are getting really active, especially the Italians, who have depleted their winter honey reserves but otherwise look fabulous.  Here they are eating leftovers of last year's cappings. Emergency feeding!

Oh, well that was easy!

So I'm a little late to the game, but I just figured out how to post photos straight from my phone (duh). Many more blog posts to come, as I can now do them from the bee yards!