The sun is out, the bees are buzzing, and the blackberries are blooming!

Over Memorial Day Weekend, The Renaissance Man’s “Beekeeping Mentor” from the Oregon Master Beekeeper Program came over to take a look at our hives and to give us some pointers on hive management.

Our hives have grow significantly since we first got our bees back in April. We’ve been feeding them sugar water (carbs) and pollen patties (protein) so that the bees barely need to leave the hive to find what they need to reproduce and grow. Although they’ve been busy exploring the neighborhood, and boy do they have a beautiful place to call home!

We’ve added brood boxes to both the Noir Hive and the Gris Hive. And after taking a look at the frames, it’s obvious that the bees are in reproduction mode; almost all of the cells are filled with brood (larva – baby bees) and very few cells are filled with pollen or honey. The brood cells are the ones “capped” in light yellow.

Now that the blackberries are starting to bloom, our Beekeeping Mentor recommended that we add on a honey super and get a Queen Excluder for each hive. The Queen Excluder is placed between the top brood box and the honey super to prevent the Queen from entering the honey super and laying eggs. Instead, the worker bees will start storing the nectar they’re collecting from the blackberries in this upper box.

You’ll notice that the honey super is about two-thirds the height of the brood boxes (the brood boxes are below the yellow Queen Excluder, and the honey super is above). When completely full, the honey super can weigh as much as 90 pounds, and produce roughly five gallons of honey! Honey anyone?

We’ll continue to feed the bees sugar water and pollen patties even with the blackberries blooming to ensure that they have enough food to keep things rolling. They’ve been going through about a quart of sugar water every five days, and we expect to see that fall off as the blackberry blooms reach their peak.

We’re lucky to have some pretty happy hives, and both The Renaissance Man (a.k.a. my husband…for you first time readers) and I are amazed with the progress. It’s going to be an exciting summer to see just how much honey the bees can produce!