2023 Harvest

 Grandson Mason helping in this years harvest. 

High Point Village and Hill of Beans resturant, Ogema, WI.

 Picture found on the internet taken from the top of the decommissioned fire tower located on the highest spot in Wisconsin.

You can find Chuck's Legacy Honey here and food prepared by Kathy Blomberg with our honey in it.

Spring 2015

After a tough winter when all 4 of the hives I tried to winter over all died out, I bought 6 new packages of 3 lbs. and 2 new packages of 2 lbs. bees.
They all look good and strong.
Hoping for the best. 8 hives total, the most I've ever had for one season. 6 in the backyard here and 2 remote around 15 miles away.
Looking for a good year!

Queen in her cage.

Getting the packages setup.

Ready to go!!

Winter 2013-2014

Jason and I last winter clearing the opening of the bee hives of frost from a couple of -20 to -30 degree F nights.
Nothing like being  "snug as a bug in a rug".

Fall to Winter Survival

Yellowjackets trying to rob honey and maybe even move into the hive.
Battle was intense but I think the honey bees won out.

Spring 2014

Got all 3 of my splits home and checked out last week. All doing fine, one exceptionally well. It was cold and crappy when I did the splits about a month ago, but the queens were ordered so had to do it. As I don't use a bee hood, I had to resort to cheapo mosquito net to keep the bees a bit at bay and consequently I didn't do a great job splitting the primary colonies but did make sure to get 3-4 frames of brood and the nurse bees that were on them but wasn't in the mood for what would happen if I tried to shake more into the secondary colonies...as I didn't think the bees would be in the mood for it.

I had to go into the lower brood box on one of the colonies to find the queen and luckily in the other 2 she was in the top box. Had to locate the queens to make sure I introduced the new queens into a colony that was queenless.
I also placed 3 or so honey frames for food in each split that was from the colonies I killed off last fall.
With the cold and wet weather was a bit concerned that the split (secondary) colonies might not have enough food, but when I opened them last week there was still some honey in each and the queens were laying.
That means that I got by with no syrup at all this spring.
Things are look great with the nice weather this morning.

Will have 6 hives/colonies for 2014. Based on past years, that should produce around 400 lbs. of honey to be available to offer customers.

 
Bringing in a least 3 different kinds of pollen, based on colors, for food for the brood.

April 9, 2014

Well, 2 of the 4 colonies make it through one of the toughest winters in 20-30 years. 3 of the 4 were still alive in February, but one of the 3 didn't quite make it to the end.

The 2 that died out had honey/food in them, but I just think it got too cold and the cluster couldn't move to the far side of the hive to find the 2.5 frames of honey. Both dead colonies were the same in this manner with about the same amount of honey that wasn't found/used.

But, the 2 that came through are doing well and maybe will be that much stronger for it. Obviously the bees/queen are hardy.

I added a 3rd hive and will split these 3 and after purchasing 3 queens from my supplier near Owen, WI will hopefully end up with 6 strong hives this season. The 3 are the short stacks with covers. The 4th taller stack is from the 2 colonies that died. There was a lot of honey in them so the bees are finding that source and using it for spring food. That way I don't need to use syrup. It all works out!

The bees are bringing in pollen. About 2-3 weeks behind last year as in March 2013 they were harvesting pollen. Today, 4-9-14 was the first day I noticed pollen on the bees.