Cold November Rain. **
Much better than freezing November snow, so what the hell, I'll take it! The bees certainly don't mind. This weather is cool enough to keep them settled, and warm enough to keep them from eating all the groceries too fast.
Keeping the bees dormant is crucial to their longevity. The more flying they do late season, the less lifespan over the winter.
One downside for the beekeeper is if you winter inside, it's still too warm to move them into shelter. A colony of bees throws off a significant amount of heat. Put four hundred of them in a wintering shed and you'll have a sauna. Warm bees want to fly, and with no sense of direction without the sun they can't return home. It becomes a hot lethal mess in hours.
So we wait until we get solid sub-zero temps both day and night, and these days that may mean December. Rain equals mud, so the whole migration to the wintering sheds is a muddy, hypothermic Disneyland day of fun. Good Times!
Christmas is coming up FAST......this lack of winter wonderland lulls me once again into thinking Time is on my side. It is Not. Ever find yourself shopping at a gas station on Christmas eve for crappy chocolates and scratch tickets? It's not pretty. This is totally avoidable by the way, and we are happy to be your solution to avoid all that embarrassment. (Everyone knows the Co-Op gas bar sells Toblerone, so you're not fooling your Auntie. She's just being polite.)
Listen, pick yourself up a mixed case. The Community Mixed Case (click) gives you up to a dozen "get out of embarrassing situations" (your flavour choice for each jar), AND donated 10 bucks to the Christmas Cheer Board. Everybody wins! Especially your Aunt.
Some pretty exciting changes happening for us this fall! We took the opportunity to expand the shop, and give the front end a MUCH needed makeover. You can read about that here in detail and we look forward to you checking out our new shopping experience!
I've been keeping bees for decades. One thing I learned a few years ago is that when you think you've seen it all, nature proves you wrong.
Check this out:
We received an email for a rescue situation last week. This wild colony was visible only after the leaves dropped and unfortunately much too late to rescue. Life is a struggle for every life form on the planet.
Sometimes it just ends poorly. These guys will starve out soon, as they won't have the resources to compensate for the exposure of where they ended up building.
If a swarm gets stalled or stuck where it first lands due to prolonged bad weather, they sometimes roll the dice and build where they only meant to temporarily camp out. This rarely works out for the best.
If you ever see anything like this, ( Hopefully before the end of Summer...) give us a call and we can transplant them to a new and safe environment. These guys are out of luck, as relocating and transplanting is invasive and stressful and they would not survive the attempt. We rescue bees all summer, and we care for Bumble bees as well (link). This summer we relocated 14 bumble bee nests to our preserve and those 14 will have made enough queens in the fall to establish 5 times that next spring. Protecting all pollinators is becoming a crucial as we face all sorts of environmental change and stressors. Plant pollinator friendly plants, don't use insecticides, and help us help the bees by contacting us if you have nuisance bumble bee nests or see any honey bee swarms.
Thanks for reading our little newsletter, and thanks for supporting your local beekeepers!
Until next time, keep warm, keep safe, and be the good in the world you want to live in.
John Russell
** editor's note: it was still raining when John wrote this we swear!