WRAPPING IT UP

I was out in the bee yard yesterday doing some final preps for winter, the nights are starting to get cool here and it looks like we’re going to dip below zero – so its time to wrap the hives. For all who have asked, over the winter the bees stay in the hive, keep the queen warm and move from frame-to-frame eating their stores (honey and pollen). I put these wraps on the hives to help insulate.

Its kind of a bittersweet time of year in the beekeeping world, or for me at least. The season is over and most of the work is done, I really start to miss beekeeping but I am also happy with the extra time.

Posted from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Comments Off | 7:01 am | November 3rd, 2012 | Beekeeping | gibbshoney

HARVEST!

Last week I harvested about 120lbs and documented the process… Its all jarred, tagged and ready to go!

This will most likely be the largest harvest this year, don’t miss out email me if you’d like a jar.

Posted from Ontario, Canada.

SWARM!

Well, its a tiny swarm… This is the first swarm that I’ve actually witnessed, it’s a colony that I am calling my “nurse colony” which was temporarily housed in my backyard in a cardboard nuc box.

Its a bit of a long story, but one of the colonies I added this year seemed to have some developmental issues that we all suspected to be linked to neonicotinoids. I was instructed to burn the colony… But, I just couldn’t do it.

What I did do was re-queen the colony, I wanted to see how she would react/what she would do. What she did was raise a new little army, then swarmed. Luckily they swarmed to a low branch on one our lilacs. So I captured it and upgraded their housing situation to a real hive. I am hoping they will have enough time to build themselves up enough to get them through the winter?

Stay tuned.

Posted from Ontario, Canada.

Comments Off | 1:12 pm | July 27th, 2012 | Beekeeping | gibbshoney

REALITY CHECK

It was a gorgeous morning out at the beeyard today.

But… I was sadly given my first dose of beekeeping reality. Varroa Mites have finally gotten into Hive 1 and 2. Its a sad thing to see, I feel like these bees are my pets, often treat them so… The first thing I saw before I could even check levels, was a few bees with deformed wing virus, which is transmitted by Varroa Destructor which is a cruel, crafty bitch.

Now I am moving into treatment mode, I think I am going to try out MAQS which have just been approved in Canada and sound pretty great. I will chronicle this journey here and hopefully things work out for my girls.

So instead of showing pics of some of the sad bees from the colonies, I’ll post this shot that I took just off my front porch this morning – honey bees working my lavender.

Posted from Ontario, Canada.

Comments Off | 2:01 pm | July 12th, 2012 | Beekeeping | gibbshoney

EARLY SUMMER HARVEST!!!

Very VERY exciting times… our first harvest is ready!!! About a month ago we extracted 2 shallow supers off of 2 hives established last year, netting about 60-70lbs. This harvest is the first bloom of the 2012 season, our bees forage on a variety of plants and this early summer harvest is full-bodied and rich – some of the best honey I’ve had in a while if I do say so myself. Its a true Southern Ontario wildflower honey. Its also packaged quite beautifully! Bottled in screen-printed reusable Mason jars, I have to thank my friends at Flash Reproductions for the screen printing and Somerset Graphics for the tag printing – love it when a plan comes together!

Honey is available now through the beekeeper (me) for $10 per 500 g jar. We have 60 jars and this will be available until its sold out. There will also be a late summer harvest which will be available in September 2012.

A couple of notes about our honey;
- Our honey is as “straight from the hive” as it gets. We extract the frames, filter, then bottle it.
- All real honey will crystallize over time, if that happens just place the jar in warm water (without the lid) until it softens up – don’t boil or put it in the microwave.
- Our honey is more expensive than others, why? For starters its not mass produced. We’re a small batch/small operation and not only are we focussed on the quality of the product we also believe in quality packaging.

Posted from Ontario, Canada.

HARVEST

Yep, that’s right… It’s harvest time, we pulled two (very heavy) shallow supers over the weekend. Every frame was full and capped – beautiful! Was planning on extracting later this week but the excitement got a hold of me and we spun 20 frames last night. We have to finish up filtering out the wax, finalize the jar design, get the jars printed, etc… Should be bottling next week? We’ll let you know here (and on Twitter) first when the crop is ready! Oh, I forgot to mention it tastes AMAZING!!!