Seattle Urban Honey

The hive on the left is a combination of two weak hives. We piled the one hive on the other with newspaper between. It must have been too late because both hives died. There was plenty of honey. The top box must have weighed 30 pounds or more. The hive on the right is a new hive placed in April. It is doing very well...

We have a new spot to keep bees. We are so excited to have a spot at the University of Washington Urban Horticulture Center. It is in an out of the way fenced area. I hope these bees do well enough to earn their rent! Our own bees ready to go in a hive. One of the members of the Puget Sound Beekeepers invited club...

This is what the bottom board on one of our dead hives looked like. It looks pretty much like the bottom boards of the hives that survive. There are a few dead bees there. We are getting some new hives ready to receive the new packages of bees that we are expecting. We went into the winter with 19 live hives. 15 of them have...

We struggle with a large hive die-off and contemplate testing our hives for bee diseases in closing earlier in the fall to prevent Nosema.

So here we are loading up our pick-up with new bee gear. We have ordered 10 packages of bees and parts for 8 new hives. Some of the bees will be for beehives that are dead and some to increase the number of our hives from 19 to about 26. Some of the hives will go at the Urban Horticulture Center at the University of...

Take a look at the photo above. It shows the entrance to a beehive that is in our backyard in Seattle. The place where the bees land as they come into the hive is covered in a damp dirty substance. It is probably a mixture of dirt and mildew. This hive is dead. I don’t know what it died of but then lots of beehives...

We found the marker commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Lorenzo L.Langstroth (b.Dec. 25, 1810). It is near the Delaware River in the old part of Philadelphia. Langstroth developed the modern beehive with movable frames. We were visiting relatives in the city of brotherly love. The darkest part of the year is behind us and already there have been days warm enough for...

Review of the movie Colony http://directory.irishfilmboard.ie/films/762-colony My husband and I saw the movie Colony at the tiny Northwest Film Forum on Madison and 12th on Capitol hill in Seattle. The theater we were in seated about 49 people in old style movie seats. The ambiance was old fashioned cute. Also attending the screening was a host of two of our bee hives. That was a...

This broccoli did not get harvested before going to flower. The bees are all over it on a nice day in late October. This is one type of bee feeder that we are using. It holds a gallon of syrup and sits on top of the inner cover. An empty box surrounds the feeder with the telescoping outer cover on top of that. The weather...

Our hives are in 8 back yards around the north end of Seattle. This is one group. We plan to expand to another 3 backyards next spring. Another group of hives. My husband with a beautiful frame of capped honey. We were taking off the supers (top honey storage units on a hive) from this hive and getting the last of the honey for this...