Honey bees foraging in an urban garden means working a wider variety of plants than any agricultural setting — leeks gone to flower, garden herbs, ornamental blooms, and wild plants along fence lines. This Seattle summer has been frustrating for beekeeping: cool, overcast day after cool, overcast day, limiting how much time the bees can forage. When Is Honey Ready to Harvest? We are seeing...

These seven beehives at the Urban Horticulture Center on the University of Washington campus represent the heart of our University District apiary. The UW UWCUH site has become one of our most productive locations in Seattle — diverse foraging plants, a fenced area, and relatively calm bees. Managing a Queenless Hive After a Swarm The hive on the far left of our current photo is...

Seattle Urban Honey beekeeper dispatches: our hives are hungry. The blackberry bushes are just about to bloom, as are the locust trees, but they are waiting for a warm day before they open. The maple and chestnut are finished. With cool, cloudy, rainy weather still dominant, the bees are stuck at home and running low on stores. Emergency Feeding and the Risk of Starvation We...

Combining honey bee hives is sometimes the only option when two colonies are too weak to survive independently. We combined two weak hives by stacking one box directly on the other with a sheet of newspaper between them. The idea is that the bees chew through the newspaper slowly, giving them time to adjust to each other scent before direct contact. When Combining Hives Fails...

Urban beekeeping found a new home this spring: we are excited to have a location at the University of Washington Urban Horticulture Center. It is a fenced, out-of-the-way area on a 74-acre botanical research site — one of the best urban beekeeping locations we have found in Seattle. We hope these bees do well enough to earn their rent! The UW Urban Horticulture Center: A...

This is a bee hive inspection post I wish I did not have to write. We entered winter with 19 live hives. Fifteen of them died over the winter. After years of Seattle urban beekeeping, this was a hard reckoning. We spent the spring trying to understand what happened — and what to do differently. Understanding Winter Losses in Seattle Beehives Only one hive died...

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.

Setting up new beehives in Seattle requires planning well ahead of the spring package deliveries. We are loading our pickup truck with new bee gear: 10 packages of bees ordered and parts for 8 new hives. Some of these hives will replace dead-outs from last winter. Others will increase our total count from 19 to approximately 26 hives. Expanding the Urban Honey Apiary The new...

One of the most reliable honey bee hive inspection techniques for winter survival checks is also one of the simplest: look at the landing board. In our backyard in Seattle, we have learned to read the state of the entrance before even opening a hive. The Landing Board as a Survival Indicator The photo in this post shows a hive entrance covered in a damp,...