A Hearty Fall Season

Okay, so it’s clear one of the hives on the Abbot’s Cellar roof has mites—but they seem to be thriving in numbers! This has been a huge stresser and we continue to debate the best way to handle the issue. Adding to the complexity of the situation, both hives appear to be thriving, but as we check the bottom board we’re seeing a high count of mites that are dropping from the hive.

We originally looked into Mite-Away strips but the utter toxicity (though organic nature of Formic Acid) so we’re returning to regular dustings of powdered sugar and reading up on additional DIY mite-treatments that will help our bees get through the winter! Any organic, non-toxic recommendations and tips are readily welcome!

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Sausalito Hive Visit

We were very lucky to visit the talented Jennifer Berry this weekend to take a gander at her impressive beekeeping setup. In all she has approximately 10 hives and has all sorts of cool beekeeping techniques going on. Below is a short summary of our visit and tour of Jennifer’s hives.

Jennifer in front of just a couple of her hives.

Smelling the sweet honey from one of the hives. Currently it has a very distinct flavor based on the regional flowers in bloom at this time of year!

Jennifer overlooking the rest of her hives just below the few hives on the balcony.

A detailed shot of the two hives and queen rearing set-up. Top tip: writing notes right on the hive lid is a great way to keep track of hive activity!

Here Jennifer points out how she feeds her bees dry, unprocessed sugar. A real revelation for us!

Fall Harvest

At Abbot’s Cellar we’ve got so much stuff going on. A mite issue, an abundance of bees and a TON of honey. With 3 supers of honey and brood and two additional supers full of honey-bound frames. We’ve decided to harvest 1 super from each hive to provide enough space for the coming months (still beautiful and sunny here in SF) and also leave plenty honey for both hives for the winter. A few pics below from Chef Adam and the team doing a bang up job!

Thanks to Hobson for the loan of the 9-frame mega-extractor! It’s so much more efficient!

Mite Alert

Oh no!

For the first time ever one of our hives very clearly has mites. We did a powdered sugar check just to see if mites may be an issue and sure enough we have a few of the buggers.

This is a totally new issue for us so if any of you fellow beekeepers have any suggestions for organic mite removal please do let us know!

New Visitors

This weekend we had Brooke and Lizzie up to the roof to take a tour of the hive. Thanks for visiting gang!

Summer Harvest At Hobson’s Hive—Part II

Here we see the gang getting down and dirty. Also, mad hands at the extractor wheel!

Summer Harvest At Hobson’s Hive—Part I

When you’re juggling many hives, you have many harvests. This last weekend we got elbow-deep in honey with Hobson and crew. They were awesome, I simply whipped up the emotional support. Great job gang! Here we see the crew suiting up and removing the frames.

Capturing the Swarm!

Someone called it a few weeks ago when they said “I bet that windscreen is going to get torn apart.” After waiting for the bees to move on from their temporary home for a few weeks, we decided to go in and get ’em!

Thank goodness for Chuck Rossi who had a spare hive and a few extra hours this weekend. He and his wife swooped in and grabbed the swarm. Only keeping bees for three months and they’re already pros! Thanks Chuck, happy beekeeping—I hope the swarm treats you well!

Harvest—Part Deux

The crew at Abbot’s Cellar are super pro and knocked out the harvest in no time flat. The final yield was 43 lbs and they’re working now on reconfiguring the hive to allow for more space generally, but specifically adding more room ( a third super) below the queen excluder. We have a hunch that while there was tons of room in the hive, there might not have been enough room for brood! Immediate goal: Get the bees through the rest of the summer in tact. Back to the hives!

We’re Big In China

We’re getting some love from the Chinese blog Oulaka! Thanks for the Black Tar Honey shout Oulaka 🙂