Heather & Steve Honey Bee Adventures – Intro to Spring 2022

Nat's Honey Bee

3 April 2022

Hello all!

It’s been a while since my last post in July, 2021. Quite a lot has transpired with our honey bee adventures. I will take this opportunity to give you this year’s first update with our friendly neighbors Heather and Steve.

If you recall, Heather and Steve started off with their first hive of Carniolan honey bees last year with one hive. In my amateur experience, one hive is usually a hugh layer of added uncertainty, among the plethora of others. With that I mean, the chances of survival and success in the first year, and with only one hive are pretty slim. I know this because I’ve experienced bee loss over the years for various reasons. I will share my experiences with you in another post sometime. Don’t let that deter you though. I’m always ready to spread some bee love when you are ready. Bee love concurs all frustrations!

Today though, I want to celebrate with my friends! They made it through the winter thus far, yea! ??? Watch the video as Heather explains how she winterized her hive, and what she did to get to this point.

Heather shares some insight on how she winterized her hive

Heather explains that she purchased the black insulating cover called Bee Cozy winter hive wrap from Amazon. I must note that she treated the hive in the fall with Apivar strips in preparation for the winter. We winterized by end of November into the first week of December. The brood box (bottom box) had all the bees, the second box carried the extra frames of honey. Heather added some syrup (sugar water) in a container. She also added a layer of granulated sugar that was distributed on a sheet of newspaper.

The next time we checked in on them was February when we added another set of Apivar strips for six weeks of mite treatment. I should also comment for the experienced bee keepers who might be wondering if we did a mite count. The answer is no, not for last year. However, we will soon for this spring.