This year’s beehive is well underway! We’ve been experimenting with backyard beekeeping for a few years now and this year looks to be the most successful–because we didn’t have to start from scratch! In the past we’ve lost the popular over the winter due to our own inexperience or circumstance. But this year the hive made it through the winter–with more than one Polar Vortex to endure. Hooray! So, to build on this momentum, we are adding a hive to the family lake cabin as well. The plan is to start the second hive in the backyard and then transport it up north once a bear-proof enclosure is constructed. (We tried at-the-cabin bees before, but the bears destroyed the hive and the colony swarmed and left.)
Luckily the backyard hive is already gathering pollen from neighborhood plants and flowers, because we are down to our last quart of honey. When you have it, you use it, and we use quite a bit: as sweetener in coffee and tea, on oatmeal and pancakes and as a sugar substitute in baking.
Get to work, you busy bees!