Spring has come at last (cue Vivaldi)! Aaand then it was gone...and then come back.  And so on a couple more times, but now appears to have returned (cue Monty Python). 

The hives are starting to show their individual characteristics and it makes me think of Animal Crossing, but all bees.  2 is our Now You See Me, Now You Don’t hive from last year in which we suspect the queen has moonlighted with the CIA and had us scratching our heads at how miraculously it has revived ( a couple times) since last year.  This is our nice hive and we split it back into 1, which had gone into winter without a queen and sadly perished.  

3 is our lazy hive and kind of like that college roommate that has all these enthusiastic ideas of how to get things done as inefficiently as possible.  They are storing food they should be eating and we are praying they figure out where they actually need to build wax to succeed in life and honey surplus. They’re a lot more chill this year though, so that’s good. 

4 is the fortress this year.  Snooty, powerful and numerous, we just made their house bigger, but they have issue that we want to keep visiting. There’s a really great variety of physical traits happening in this hive and they seem pretty tough.  I try to appreciate this as I’m getting smacked in the face while working the hive.  I think they may have some dragon blood. 

We have some new additions to the guild that we are happy to have working with us, which means more hives, which means more honey. We are hoping to get two more hives up soon and also to have the surrounding fence completed as well this year.  

Stay tuned for the summer, in which we battle parasites and predators, build up our apiary empire and get ready for the first honey flow.