End of the Year for bees....

We have had a rather warm winter so far.  Just a little cold weather and nothing really below 28 degrees.  This is unusual and I am concerned about the bees having enough food stored to last until spring when the natural nectar flow starts.  Today, the weather was seasonably cold so I went up around to the back of some of the hives.  How cool it is to put my ear to the back of the back and give 1 sharp tap on the box.  Hives that are still alive will give a short loud buzz !  Today every hive buzzed.. so far so good !

Thank You

Merry Christmas from me and the bees.  Thank you to all my customers for your support during the year !

Bees cluster during winter

During cold weather, bees cluster inside the hive - eating honey to generate heat.  This is how they survive the winter.  They do not hibernate but will come out of the hive on warm days to fly around.  Making sure the colony has enough honey for winter is one of the most challenging things for new or even experienced beekeepers.

Bees get cold too !

On a warm winter afternoon, the bees have come out to fly around and take water back to the hive.  They will use this water to dilute honey and feed young.  Even though the air temps were mild, the pond water was cold.  Several of the bees had feel into the cold water.  They were still alive so I lifted them out of the pond.  I was afraid they had used up all their energy reserves trying to get out of the water and would be "out of fuel" and unable to fly back home.  After a nice snack of "honey on a toothpick", about a dozen of the bees fly back to the hives.  Such a simple thing made me feel so good...LOL   Yes, we beekeepers are crazy !

Gift Bags

It is so much fun to make Christmas gift baskets.  These featured a small trial size bar of my homemade soap and a Peppermint or Grape Beeswax lip balm in a cute gift bag.  Make a special little gift for someone special.

I love these little 2 oz honey bears.   I have made many of these for wedding favors !

The bees and I work to provide pure raw honey to our friends and customers at a fair price. We focus on producing quality honey and thoughtful management of the bee colonies. It requires the work of about 10,000 workers bees to collect enough nectar to make 1 pound of honey !

Slow Food Earth Market Greenville SC

My Dad is a great helper when we are promoting honeybees at our local Slow Food Earth Market in Greenville SC !

Honey at Williams Sonoma !

My honey demo at the local Williams Sonoma was alot of fun !

Raw Honey

After extracting honey from the comb, I let it drip through a nylon mesh.  This removes large parts of wax and leaves all the natural goodness of the honey !  This is raw honey, it has not been superfiltered or heated !

Swarms in Spring !



A lazy Sunday afternoon, but alas bees wait for no man... I mean woman ! (photo taken in May 2012)  Honeybee colonies will swarm .  When the colony becomes overcrowded a large portion of the bees will leave to find a new home.  We beekeepers hope to catch them before they get too far away and give them a new box in our bee yard

I love watching the bees.  You can learn so much about them from just observing the hive entrance.  While I was recently taking pictures, I felt a feather like touch on my finger .  There was a worker resting with her legs loaded with pollen.  The pollen will be used to feed young bees.  After resting for a minute, she takes off and flies into the hive.  It was a pleasant experience for me and I hope for her !

These busy bees are working hard to gather nectar and pollen for the hive !

Warm...HOT Spring continues..

The colonies have all grown in size and are busy doing the things bees do.  Gathering nectar, pollen, propolis and water .  Warm weather has caused many of the forage sources to bloom early.

New package bees

I purchased a few 3# packages of bees to "beef up" my hive numbers. It is always exciting to have new arrivals !

Chickweed offers sweet rewards...

This worker bee is having a feast on the chickweed...seems a shame to cut the yard !

Red Maples in spring help feed bees !

A warmer than usual Spring saved many colonies from starvation.  The bees love to collect pollen and nectar from Red Maple blooms in early Spring.

It was not a good winter !

I paid for the mistake of taking colonies into fall with too small a cluster.  I lost more colonies than I should have but fewer than I "might have" if the winter had been colder.  Bees are off to a good start for Spring, lets hope for the best !