Cabol told me to go do something while waiting for the furniture to arrive today (it’ll probably coincide with a thunderstorm). So I went down to the beehives, since they are way past due to have their mite medicine removed, and the feeders from the winter taken off.
All three hives seem to have made it through the winter. The one closest to the garden (which blew over in the middle of the winter) still seems the smallest, but there were bees in it, at least. I put a new super on the middle one, and the third one had comb built on about half its top super.
I know a real beekeeper would take the supers off each other and check each one and see how things are going, but I’m too scared of the bees to spend any more time down there than necessary. Maybe if there is no drought this year we’ll get some honey to harvest, although having living hives these days is a feat unto itself.
Tell me more about the plight of honeybees? I’m glad to hear yours are surviving.
You haven’t heard of the worldwide honeybee decimation? It’s actually kind of sad and weird and scary. We really need honeybees!
My sister and brother-in-law REALLY need them, since they have their very own apiary. It’s the best damn honey I’ve ever tasted, and i like it solid, yet chewy, kinda like taffy but not so sticky.
I think they lost like 500k of bees! If I can remember this right, their own personal theory has to do with all the pesticide and chemical shit put into stuff like corn, and then the bees have their go at the plants, and they die and stuff.
I think they make a lot more now driving their bees down to California and pimping them out to pollinate almonds and stuff than they do from the actual honey!
I had heard of the decline of honeybee populations but I didn’t know anything more about it. I saw an episode of “The Nature of Things” about bees that was fascinating, but didn’t seem to retain much.
Well, the mites have been a problem for years now, which would weaken hives, but now they also seem to mysteriously just die off.
I think most professional beekeepers have made the majority of their money off the pollination fees rather than the honey for a long time. Especially since places like China have (surprise) been dumping very cheap honey on us, lowering the prices.