DOW GARDENS' BEE BLOG

It is with sorrow that I share with you our loss of one of the Whiting Forest hives. It was just 3 weeks ago that we had two live hives, so as the weather started to turn warm, it was NOT a good sign that there wasn’t any activity outside of the hive. I don’t know if we will ever…

For the beekeeper, winter is filled with anxiety. Did I do everything I could to help them be ready for winter? Were the mites and other pests under control? Did we secure the hive well enough to protect from predators and cold? Do the bees have enough resources to make it through until the spring blooms? Often the answer to…

Last fall, preparing a hive for winter was new to me, but consisted of making sure the hive had been treated late fall for mites, stores of honey and pollen were plentiful, putting a mouse guard (made of ¼ inch hardware cloth) to prevent nesting invaders, and capping up the hive for the winter. Seemed simple enough. This year, like…

While I wouldn’t say I am perfectly comfortable tending a hive, I am getting more comfortable and confident that I can identify an issue if I come across one. Varroa mites are only one of those issues. We know that mites significantly reduce the health of a population and more so at this time of year when the colony is…

On Wednesday, July 29th we pulled the honey off the Dow Gardens bee hives. We used fume boards to drive the bees down out of the honey supers. This was a much calmer approach than our method of blowing them out of the supers with a leaf blower – last year’s technique. We took our haul to Dan Keane’s honey…

Michigan State University recommends before you begin beekeeping, you should at minimum read a book, attend a seminar, be hands-on in a hive, and find a mentor. One of the best things a beginning beekeeper can do is to get a mentor. Work with someone with more experience and knowledge, asking questions, get experience dealing with the surprises that come…

The spring started out strong in the Whiting Forest hives. Lots of healthy bees. The novice in me thought that was incredible and we should have an easy season! Well it is incredible these days to have that kind of survival rate, but what I didn’t know were the ramifications of a strong hive coupled with a really heavy nectar…

The main challenge of every beekeeper is to keep their bees healthy and therefore have a better chance at colony survival (especially through the winter). A colony of bees is a super organism—an animal—and like all domesticated animals, honeybees rely on humans for well being and health.  Everything we do, with the exception of harvesting honey, has the goal of…

About 80-90% of the species in the plant Kingdom are flowering plants. This means that in order to reproduce effectively (exchange genetic information to keep populations strong), they must be pollinated and produce fruit and seeds. Most of these plants (~80%) require animals for pollination. Flower type, shape, color, odor, nectar, and structure all help draw in a plant’s appropriate…

As we all work to just survive these trying times, we will all have days that are highs and lows. But we are like the honeybees, if we all work together (in our case staying apart), we can have a stronger ‘hive’ for it. There are a lot of things that can negatively impact a honeybee hive: pests and diseases…