Category: Bees
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Shady Lane Bees Lip Balm!?
Yeah …we’re working on it! Lip balm with Whidbey Island beeswax and Whidbey Island honey! Shhh! Don’t tell anyone!
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SLB Wins 2014 Best Of Show
I’ve never entered anything into the fair, or any other contest before. Another Whidbey Island beekeeper asked me if I would be interested. I never thought of the idea of someone judging my honey. Well, except for my customers. This would be an official judgement. Someone who would break down and score my honey under…
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Fresh honey at Oak Harbor and Coupeville!
Fresh honey straight from my beehives and into the jars. No treatments, no antibiotics, no heat, and certainly no filtering. Gently strained, raw, 100% natural Whidbey Island honey from Whidbey Island bees. Lisa Phillips of RoundTuit Farms will be selling our honey at the Oak Harbor Farmer’s Market on Thursday, July 24th from 4:00pm to 7:00pm…
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Queen rearing update
Checked my queen cells in the finisher to see how many were capped. Seven. 7 out of 12 …frankly, I’m pleased even if that is technically an “F“. It’s my first attempt at grafting, so, yeah, I’m pleased. I think I need to work on creating better starters …packing them more. I should be able to…
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Raising Local Honey Bee Queens on Whidbey
I’m very interested in locally raised queens. As many beekeepers say, “Beekeeping is local.” and I agree. A locally raised queen has a “leg up” in our environment compared to one bought and shipped from hundreds of miles away. This is my first queen rearing attempt and these pictures are the result of my first…
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Bee Removal On Whidbey Island
I was called to do a cut out which is something I don’t usually do but as long as the owner was willing to do the work opening up the home to gain access to the bees, I would get the bees and take them away. The owner proceeded to remove trimming and then the…
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The Himalayan Blackberry (Rubus armeniacus)
The Himalayan Blackberry gets a bad rap because it is everywhere and because it is considered invasive (native to Northern Iran and Armenia, coming to America in about 1885). It is quite prolific here on Whidbey Island and when under control, I think of it as a much liked blackberry (great tasting when ripe) and the biggest…
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Trying to prevent robbing
I just did a cut down split. When you do so, the new hive might have foragers and the idea is that they’ll go back to the old hive. And they did. And also told their sisters where to go get some fresh syrup and they started robbing the new hive. So I added a…
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Bees on a gorgeous day!
We haven’t too many of them …mostly rain or clouds with a few good days in between. By May we usually have nice weather …well the bees had a good day today!
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The First Package Install Wasn’t Mine
Spring is here and that means new bees — either from nucs (small starter hives) or packages. A package is solely a box of bees that were shaken into it, along with a queen and a can of syrup. Yesterday I was able to spend a bit of time with a fellow beekeeper that just brought…