Winter was late in coming this year, but once it arrived you couldn’t miss it! This morning I was reading the weather outlook in the Michigan Farm News (written by Jeff Andressen the meteorologist with the MSU Extension) and if they have it right, the recent...
Winter was long in coming here in W. Michigan. We still had some very temperate sunny afternoons in November. On one of those afternoons I visited one of our apiaries to see how the bees were faring. There were a few bees flying, gathering water from a nearby low spot...
Swarming season is in full swing here in W. Michigan. Friday morning while working in our own apiary I witnessed a couple of swarms taking off, even though our colonies have all been split. Some have been split into three, but that didn’t stop those old queens...
Today we had a unseasonably warm spring day, so we headed over to our bee yards to see how they were doing. We were able to check for laying queens and making sure each colony has enough stores to get them through the next 4-5 weeks. The bees were taking advantage...
Today we had a warm though windy day, giving us the opportunity to pop some covers and see how the bees wintered. We were quite happy with what we found. So far all of our colonies are alive, though March is can be a challenging month for the bees as stores start to...
12/20/19 Update: You might want to look at our more updated article on wintering bees in Michigan. It’s that time of the year again here in Michigan! In recent days we’re starting to spot a few snow flakes floating in. The past couple of weekends we were...
