Riverside Apiary: Catching up. Part 1

Spring has come. There are some Pussy Willows out now and the long droopy flowers (Catkins) of the native Hazelnuts and Alders and I suspect the Pollen the girls are bringing in are from both of these trees.

Spring can bee a busy time for those beekeepers who hibernates all winter and leaves everything until the warmer longer days come. I did manage to get up off the couch and get boxes assembled and painted and ready to accommodate splits or swarms during the upcoming season. But mostly....I waited.

On the 16th and 17th of April, the weather was warm and sunny, so i took advantage of that and peaked inside each hive to see if the girls still had food. All the hives still had some honey left and a little of their candy boards, so needless to say i was happy.

April 14th

May/June2021

Time got away on me and here it is the 15th of May. The bees are in full swing now. They are bringing in tons of pollen now. In a week or so all our fruit trees will be in full bloom. But for now, there are only a few dandelions, some remaining pussy willows, skunk cabbage and something else that has green pollen.

We have a couple interesting projects going on in the beeyard. First of all, clean up. Once the winter wraps are off, there always seems to be bits of styrofoam, Tuck tape and little pieces of lumber laying around. So we finally got that all cleaned up and put away.

The bees had been doing good and hive 1 and 3 were a whole lot stronger in population than hive 2. So i decided to rob some brood from hive 3 to top off that one. While checking for swarm cells i noticed that Hive #3 needed to be split. It was bursting at the seams.

By June they had brought in a lot of dandelion nectar, i was surprised. But then, we had left most of dandelions growing in our lawn at the house and the bee side and only cut where it was needed. The bees loved it, and i loved looking over the sea of yellow flowers in the yard. We also have this ground cover growing in the lawn that have bright purple flowers in it, which we noticed the bees loved as well.

After about 2 1/2 months, we finally made a trip into Prince George to do a grocery run. But more importantly a trip to Art Knapps to buy plants. We had decided to add another Cherry tree to the orchard, but also some blueberries. It was exciting to expand our orchard and next year, i think we might add another blueberry and perhaps another kind of berry to the family.

We also thinned out our strawberries and replanted them in the second box in the orchard. Next year we will take over the 3rd and final box with more strawberries.

And i am sure the bees are enjoying have more fruit trees to pollinate so close by.

Speaking of Pollen. We are involved with a small research project that requires collecting small amount of pollen then sending it off to be analyzed to determine what kind of pollen it is. Our bees hated the pollen traps but we did managed to collect a small amount to get sent off. We kept track of what was in flower during that time. So it will be pretty neat to hear the end results. Our bees arent bringing in much pollen right now. But they should start again in August.