Gee's Bees, LLC

Rachel stopped by and dropped off her equipment. Turns out to be 10F boxes, waxed dipped stuff, pretty nice. We were able to get an 8F box transferred over and a piece of screen installed. So tomorrow we can just throw one more staple in and run them over.  We also got the ones who needed it another round of 1:1. Namely: Hives 11, 15, 21, & 23. Rachel, we need to feed hers they are looking pretty light, Now the hard part will be distinguishing when to turn them off the welfare and let the flow take over.

B got stung today. It was a beautiful day and the bees were busy, as busy as a well... Bee. She was outback checking their comings and goings when one flew into her hair. Once entangled in that mop the sting was inevitable. It was on top of her head, but the swelling moved down her face, so by the evening she looked like she had gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson. We were able to get the rest of the honey bottled up. The last bucket that we are going to sell at least. We still have a bucket of later Summer honey that we are going to keep for recipes and mead making. This is darker, heavier honey with a bit of an aftertaste, so we decided not to sell it. The girls also got another round of 1:1 syrup. No spirulina this time. They should be bringing in plenty of pollen from the blooming Maples. https://photos.app.goo.gl/tbdyDgVHL2sVXhw8A

Time to feed the bees... It was mid-fifties and they were flying pretty good, even some orientation flights? Not sure if they are reorientating or have/had some brood cycle through? Thinking the former, I can't imagine brood emerging on February 9th. Populations look pretty good especially the nucs, not showing any harm from being blown over a little over a month ago,  🐝 Storm Damage (geesbeesnc.com) . We want to get them big and strong, so we can split them by taking a nuc out of them and recombining in time for the new queen to be laying and the honey flow. We need to have our timing down perfectly, so the goal is set pretty high.  The weather is supposed to reach the mid-sixties come Saturday and then crash again on Sunday with a chance of flurries. We might get the chance to take a peek this weekend and get an actual assessment of how they are building up.

It was in the upper 40°'s today so we ventured out back for a peek at the hives. Actually, it was more than just a peek, it was to check populations along the tops, make sure they still had some sugar cakes and put half a pound of pollen patties on them. They all looked good except for Hive 11. Their population at least at the top looked pretty anemic and we are pretty sure something is going on with that hive. We will have to wait for a break in the weather to do a proper inspection and get a diagnosis, but until then we will keep the food on and hope for the best. Hive 11: Really light on bees, and plenty of sugar brick left. Gave 1/2 lb Pollen Patty. Hive 13: Good population, light on sugar brick. Gave 1/2 Sugar Brick and 1/2 lb Pollen Patty. Hive 15: Great population, light on sugar brick. Gave 1/2 Sugar Brick and 1/2 lb Pollen Patty. Hive 21: Good population, still had plenty of sugar brick. Gave 1/2 Sugar Brick and 1/2 lb Pollen Patty. Hive 22: Great population, light on suga...

We were able to mix up some more sugar bricks to put back on the hives that toppled over,  🐝 Storm Damage (geesbeesnc.com) . Ten more pounds of the stuff, just sugar, water, and a splash of Honey Bee Healthy. Next year we may try Kent William's Recipe , pretty much the same with the addition of Citus Acid and Apple Cider Vinegar. Their population look pretty good, so if the queens are still there we should have some viable colonies despite the craziness.

Finally, got the sugar bricks ( Recipe ) made, it has been really warm, so we have been concerned about them burning through their stores due to activity. This time of year there's nothing to forage, so they are just wasting energy and food. Unlike us where we seem to be storing around our middles with Thanksgiving and Christmas Cookie Season upon us. More foraging is definitely needed... 😉 The house kind of smells good while this is baking, B doesn't agree. She feels the spearmint in the   Honey B Healthy  is nauseating and counters with  Yankee Candles . So now we have competing smells of Wrigley's Chewing Gum and Winter Stargazing Candle Scent that are pretty off-putting. Later in the afternoon, temperatures reached close to 70℉ on December 4th! We donned our bee coats and put the shims and bricks on the hives, the hives look really good. Especially Hive 15... Whoa there's a lot of bees. They actually got (2) bricks. In their immediate future will be an...

Mike Tyson beekeeping again 1 . We had planned on putting the honey supers on today to take advantage of any early nectar flow. We even went so far as to stage all the boxes and to make sure they had properly drawn out comb. After inspecting (2) hives it became painfully obvious that these gals are light. With populations getting to almost critical levels (I'm looking at you Hive 008/25), we decided that it was too much of a risk that these hives would starve out. So we scrapped the supering plan, continued to cycle the brood above the excluder, and put some additional weak syrup on them (with spirulina). We'll reassess, next weekend. It looks like last week's freeze set the Holly Bushes back. All the blooms are now black, so we'll wait on those. Plus our Dogwood hasn't started blooming in earnest yet. We did find a few swarm cells in Hive 008/25. We did a cut-down split starting a 5 frame nuc with the queen (008). We left one good-looking cell with the parent colon...