The Bees Are Back!

Saturday: The bees are coming today! To get ready for their arrival, I'm preparing their sugar syrup and making a homemade version of Honey B Healthy, a nourishing supplement that is added to the syrup. I'll be teaching my co-workers how to be beekeepers and they'll be installing the bees on Sunday with my guidance. Ray built us...

Garden Journal — Block Island Bees

Mary Beth and I have been trying to push ourselves to blog more often so in the past few months we've created several regular features. One is Sunday Zen, a photographic time-out where we go into the garden, usually ours, but sometimes other public and private gardens, and take photographs that reflect our mood. Tuesday's...

Tuesday’s Tips — Caring for Bees

This week marks the fourth annual National Pollinator Week. Bees are probably the first thing that come to mind when we think about pollinators, but there are many others that deserve our gratitude and care — hummingbirds, bats, butterflies, and beetles to name a few. I love honeybees best so that's what I'm going to...

Tuesday’s Tips — Attracting Honeybees

I couldn't order my bees back in the beginning of the year because the date of our arrival in Colorado was constantly changing. I really needed to do it in January or February before the apiaries sold out, but up until a week before our departure I still wasn't sure when we'd be in Durango....

Suped Up TBH

Mary Beth: This will be my last bee update from Block Island for a while because Ray and I are on the road. Durango, here we come!. Monday, May 3: The apple trees are blooming on the Island. The buds started opening up around April 27th, which is really early. As I mentioned in an...

Bee Spring Updates

Mary Beth: With the weather calm and warm since the heavy rainstorms came through last week everything is exploding into life. The bees aren't drinking as much sugar syrup and they're beginning to bring in large amounts of pollen. The major source seems to be the red maples. I added a few bars to the...

Tips from My First Beekeeping Year

Mary Beth: It was a year ago that I got serious about beekeeping; I had just put in my order for a package of honeybees and I was so excited. But I really had no clue about what I was getting myself into (neither did my husband!). Sure I'd read a lot and spent countless...