Menu


The Real World of Beekeeping

"Bees are fascinating creatures. It's amazing to see all they can do. I wonder how they know. It leads me to think beyond evolution. Walking among the bees is like walking into church and meeting God."

-- Edward W Williams --

Since I started beekeeping, the national average for colonies lost each year has been between 55% and 62%; some of the worst years in recorded history. Most beekeepers will acknowledge the serious die-off problem, but avoid telling how it affects them. They don't tell how many colonies they manage or how many colonies they lose each year. I don't blame them. It's not good to tell people that half your colonies die each year, when you're making money by telling them how to raise bees. I got it. I think most mean well and give good advice, but they don't convey what beekeeping is really like.

I started beekeeping in 2023. I consider myself new, but I have my opinions. I'll say what I think, but I'm not making money by telling people how to raise bees. I can't even raise enough bees myself to make money selling honey. Beekeeping isn't all rainbows and butterflies. My journal is to give you insight about beekeeping; what's going on, what I'm doing, how I feel, and what I'm thinking. My journal is about the real world of beekeeping.

cage
Building frames
cage
Installing the queen in a new hive.
cage
The start of Urban Wild Honey
Bees getting ready-- built comb on the queen cage while being shipped.

Getting ready

I'm try to get to the point where I have ten to twelve hives going into winter each year. There is strength in numbers. More colonies that make it into spring will give more choices available to expand my apiary. I had ten hives last summer, eight going into winter, but only two survived. I don't think I can manage more than twelve on my own. The problem isn't just having enough hives; it's also being able to make splits to cover the loses. I've put a fair amount of time and money into beekeeping. I thought I'd be farther along with my apiary by now; Have a good supply of honey, having a good outlet for selling honey, selling the extra Spring splits, raising and selling queens, making soap, and other bee related items. No, I'm starting over every year.

My packages of bee will arrive soon and I'll be spliting the colonies that survived. I'm going to start my carniolan bees in nucs, but I'm not sure if I'm going to keep them in there during winter. I listened to a speaker talk about overwintering in nucs. I gave it a try last winter with three packages and none of them survived. I'm up for a challenge but, once bitten; twice shy. Maybe I'll keep two colonies in the nucs and put the other two in 10-frame supers. I'm starting to configure all my hives with just medium supers. The deep supers are getting to be a heavy lift for me. If I had it all to do over again, I'd use all medium supers.
-- March 25, 2026 --

Nucs for my carniolan bees arriving soon.

Here I go again.

Out of my 8 colonies going into winter, 6 were dead-outs by spring. Dead with no sign that anything was wrong. I had one strong hive and one that was weak. I made a split from the strong hive. The split had a huge amount of bees and they made about twelve queen cells. I didn't plan on making more splits so soon, but I decided to make two more splits with the extra queen cells.

My four packages of Carniolan bee came in today. They all looked real good. I installed them with no problems. In a few days, I'll check if all the queens are released and then later I'll check if they are laying. I should know around Mid-May if all 9 colonies will be good. After everything settles down in a few weeks, I think I might extract some honey.

The temperature is going to go below sixty for about five days. I changed my order this year to have the bees delivered later, so the temperature would be higher. That didn't work. I made the splits expecting it to stay above Sixty. That didn't work. I don't like doing anything with the bees when the temperature is below sixty, especially if its a new colony. There's not a lot of bees in a package or a split, so they have a hard time thermoregulating the hive if it gets cold. The packages are busy, but no much activity with the split. I had to take the chance of making the splits. All the extra queens would have died anyways. I'll just have to wait out the cold spell.
-- April 28, 2026 --

Contact