Sunday, March 13, 2011

First Hive Visits of the Year

It's been while since the last post because it ended up being a tough year for the bees. Of our five hives, only two managed to hang on.

The diseased hive seemed to bounce back only to completely vanish a month later -- I suspect that was our first experience with colony collapse, but am not really sure. The other hive at our friend's limped along for a while, then petered out. They never really showed signs of illness, but the population just never got very big. One hive at the Dolores location suffered the same fate. There was a small population in November, so we let them go as they were but they did not make it through the winter.

Overall, 2010 was a very cold summer but also fairly dry for the area. I suspect that the bees did not get out to forage as much as they needed and that even when they did get out nectar was scarce. Consequently we simply did not harvest any honey last year. Anything that the bees did collect we left for them to get through the winter.

The two hives that we have left are bustling now, though. The one at Dolores is chock full of bees and I hope to have a chance to explore the hive more thoroughly to see how much nectar and pollen they have been bringing in, and to make sure they are standing up to mites and generally healthy. The hive on our friend's roof is also very busy, but a little smaller. We added a new honey super to the top and are hoping that they get right to work on it. There was plenty of brood, and plenty of honey, and quite a bit of new nectar.

The year seems to be off to a promising start.

Please visit our shop to purchase Noe Valley Honey and other hive products from the Pollen Princesses.