2023 · August 13, 2023
Relarving means the transfer of youngest worker bee larvae into artificial queen cups and is an established technique to obtain new queen bees. However, it involves some uncertainties, especially for the doddering casual beekeeper with deteriorating visual acuity: Do I have the right tool? Will I pick up larvae at the right age? Do I have such good eyes or/and a suitable magnifying glass to see the tiny larvae? Are my hands steady enough so that I can work with the delicate relarving tool...
2023 · August 11, 2023
There are numerous methods for the beekeeper to get new queens. One of them is currently underway, strictly according to the manual.
2023 · August 06, 2023
After the honey harvest, the focus of the garden beekeeper is on feeding the bee colonies for the winter and on controlling the varroa mite. The standard procedure for varroa mite control is to evaporate formic acid in the colony over an extended period of time. Formic acid also penetrates the capped brood cells, where the majority of the mites reside. However, it is highly aggressive: during its application, most of the brood is destroyed, many bees and sometimes even the queen are burned and...
2023 · August 02, 2023
It is done: The honey of the year 2023 is filled into jars. All four varieties of honey shine with their fine, very individual taste:
2023 · July 17, 2023
Last Sunday, the garden beekeeper could harvest and extract 260kg of summer honey. The full honey buckets in the picture are the result of a long working day: At 6 o'clock the honey boxes at the external stand were cleared, afterwards the honey of the colonies in the garden. Equipment was set up in the kitchen. Thankfully, little daughter patiently and persistently turned the hand crank of the extractor. At midday, a colleague called and informed that all hell had broken loose at the outdoor...
2023 · July 09, 2023
The rapeseed fields have long since withered, and the forest has also stopped honeying for a week. Now the bees are living off the reserves they have collected, they are drying the abundantly collected nectar, and the honey is ripening in the combs. Next weekend the honey will be harvested. The bees are fed sugar syrup as a substitute.
2023 · June 10, 2023
The hive scale shows that the bees achieve the highest nectar input in the lime trees early in the morning from 6 am to 8:30 am. The reason for the weight loss in the afternoon is the orientation flight of the young bees and the flying out of the drones in search of a princess :-) Live data from the hive scale
June 09, 2023
The 2023 spring honey is in the jars and available now as Frühlingsblüte from the rapeseed field in Eberstadt (left, creamy) and from the Heilbronn garden (right, liquid). Why is the honey from the rapeseed field not labeled as rapeseed honey? Because the color and also the data of the hive scale show that the honey also contains portions of acacia blossom and probably leaf honey from a nearby forest. It shows once again: The beekeeper makes a plan, and then life comes (or rather, the bees...
2023 · May 21, 2023
The rape is withered. Nevertheless, after a few cool days there are still good weight gains, and dark nectar is found in the honey chamber - obviously the bees find another rich source of nectar in the nearby forest...
2023 · April 30, 2023
And as if the wandering into the rape and the inspection of the colonies there was not enough, the garden beekeeper recovered a Dutch swarm[1] from a car, which made its owner nervous. The garden beekeeper actually already has more colonies than he needs this year. In this respect the new arrival was a bit like unintentionally pregnant... ;-) [1] Some beekeepers call a "Dutch swarm" a swarm "van Andern" ("from others"), i.e. not from their own colonies, because their own colonies are of...