Weekend and Almost Swarm

There are peaceful country drives… and then there are bee runs. 🐝🚙💨

Visit to Steve's Bees ~ Lucinda, PA

This week’s adventure took us up to Steve's Bees to pick up our newest ladies. Packages loaded, excitement high, weather questionable. The kind of spring day where the clouds look personally offended.

Now, most sensible people might wear their bee hoods for the ride home.

We are apparently not most sensible people.

To be fair, the bees were packaged. Mostly contained. “Mostly” doing some very ambitious heavy lifting here.

By the time we hit the road in the Bronco Sport, we noticed a few escape artists buzzing around the vehicle. Then a few more. Then roughly sixty tiny airborne felons circling the interior like they were planning a hostile takeover of the vehicle. Eventually, nearly all of them gathered on my driver’s side window while I was driving, creating what can only be described as the world’s least reassuring blind spot.

A couple decided I looked trustworthy enough to land on. One settled on my chest. Another parked itself on my arm. At this point, there’s a very specific kind of calm you enter. It’s somewhere between “nature documentary narrator” and “this is how the local newspaper writes about me.”

Surprisingly, nobody got stung.

The bees honestly had every reason to be cranky. Saturday’s weather was absolutely miserable. Cold, wet, muddy, and windy. Honey bees hate cold rain about as much as cats hate bathtubs. Then after settling in, they got moved again Monday, which bees also do not appreciate. Imagine someone shaking your entire house, relocating it, and then expecting you to immediately go back to work collecting groceries.

Still, they made the trip like champs. They are now settled in a hive that isn't a cardboard bee mover.

Tuesday ~ Almost Swarm at Getz Yard

Then came Tuesday.

While mowing, Dad noticed one of the hives had bees hanging in a giant cluster on the front entrance. This behavior is called bearding. In the middle of summer, bearding is pretty common. Bees gather outside the hive in warm weather to help regulate temperature and airflow inside. Think of it as thousands of tiny HVAC technicians working overtime.

But in early spring? ...that gets our attention.

Especially because if you’ve been following along, you know we already split this hive once earlier this season.

A split is basically controlled bee math. Beekeepers intentionally divide a strong colony into two colonies to reduce overcrowding and help prevent swarming. Swarming is when the old queen leaves with about half the hive population to start a new colony somewhere else. From the bees’ perspective, it’s reproduction and survival. From the beekeeper’s perspective, it’s watching your workforce fly into a tree and disappear into the sunset like a tiny winged Western movie.

So Chris and Liz dug into the hive to investigate. And wow.

The colony was absolutely bursting with bees. Wall to wall fuzz. They also found multiple swarm cells, which are special queen cells the bees build when they’re preparing to swarm. They look like little peanut-shaped capsules hanging from the frames. Once you see several of them, the bees are basically announcing, “We have plans, and you are not included.”

No queen was found during the inspection, but honestly, that isn’t shocking in a hive exploding with bees. Finding one queen among tens of thousands of moving insects can feel like trying to spot a single grain of rice in a shag carpet.

The good news is they were able to separate the swarm cells into two hives and add empty drawn comb to give the colonies more room. Empty comb is valuable because it gives bees instant space for brood or honey storage without having to spend energy building wax first. More room often helps calm the colony’s urge to swarm.

At least that’s the plan. With bees, sometimes you feel like a seasoned beekeeper. Other times you’re just a confused landlord standing in a cloud of insects asking everyone politely to stop making queens.

So now we wait, watch, and hope the girls decide to stay home instead of launching Operation Airborne Relocation.

 

Beekeeping season has officially begun. Chaos included. 🐝

Spring 2026!

Dearest gentle readers, the social season is fully underway in the apiary, and a new group of ladies has officially arrived at the estate. Fresh from Mann Lake, these Buckfast bees have already caused quite the stir among the local residents with their pleasant temperaments, lighter coloring, and suspiciously charming behavior.

Thankfully, unlike Bridgerton, the only drama in our bee yard so far has involved a smoker that wouldn’t stay lit and someone forgetting where they set the hive tool down for the fifteenth time.

May Activities

As May progresses, we are feeding our little colonies due to the cold and wet weather. But they are all very happy still. We are also keeping a close eye to make sure no one swarms!

Got a swarm? Call us!

This weekend (May 9th), we will travel up to Lucinda, PA. After lunch with our Aunt, we'll stop and pickup a couple nucs from Steve. We met Steve at a festival at one of the local farms in Clarion. Steve's Bees Honey can be found all over Clarion County. It also just happens that he is a distant cousin of mine!

Apimaye Insulated Hive

There’s a new resident in our apiary this season: an Apimaye insulated hive system. We recently picked up one of their 10-frame hive sets and decided it was too interesting not to put through a real-world test. Most of us are used to the classic wooden Langstroth setup: pine boxes, propolis-glued lids, warped covers after a few wet Pennsylvania seasons, and the annual game of “how much ventilation is enough but not too much?” The Apimaye hives take a very different approach. These hives are built from insulated, double-walled food-grade plastic with built-in ventilation controls, feeders, entrance reducers, and locking components all integrated into the design.

What really caught our attention was the focus on temperature stability and moisture control. Traditional wooden hives do a decent job, but bees spend an enormous amount of energy heating and cooling the colony through the seasons. Apimaye’s insulated design aims to reduce that workload so colonies can conserve resources during winter and build up faster in spring. The system is still compatible with standard 10-frame Langstroth equipment, which means we can experiment without rebuilding our entire operation around proprietary gear. We can even stack wooden honey supers on top during the summer months.

Over the coming months, we’ll be treating this hive like a little bee-side science project. We want to compare brood development, honey stores, overwintering success, moisture levels, and overall colony temperament against our more traditional wooden setups. Will the insulation help the bees thrive during our unpredictable Pennsylvania weather swings? Will ventilation management actually be easier, or just more complicated with extra moving parts? And perhaps most importantly: will the bees seem happier working inside what looks suspiciously like the luxury cabin version of a hive? 🐝

At the very least, the Apimaye setup already wins points for thoughtful engineering. Everything snaps together with a satisfying “this was designed by someone who actually keeps bees” kind of feel. Whether it becomes our future standard or just an interesting experiment remains to be seen, but that’s half the fun of beekeeping anyway. Every hive teaches you something new.

April Activities

We ordered a 3-pound package of Buckfast bees from Mann Lake, and right away these girls stood out. Not only are they adorable, but compared to some of our other bees, they seem lighter in color and somehow just... cuter. Yes, apparently bee aesthetics are now part of our beekeeping criteria.

So why Buckfasts? These bees were originally developed by combining different honey bee lines to create a calmer, hardier hybrid with improved disease resistance and productivity. One of the first things we noticed after installing them was how relaxed they were. Chris even commented that “the ladies are happy,” which, in beekeeper language, is basically a five-star review.

From everything I’ve read, Buckfast bees are known for being excellent foragers, even during cooler or cloudy weather when other colonies might stay home and complain about the forecast. They also have a reputation for strong honey production while being conservative with their winter stores, which feels like a pretty good combination for Pennsylvania beekeeping. Between their temperament, resilience, and work ethic, they seemed like a great colony to experiment with this season.

Of course, our Saskatraz girls are still out there doing their thing too, and we’ve been really happy with them. If anything, adding Buckfast genetics into the apiary should make for an interesting comparison and maybe even strengthen the overall diversity of our colonies moving forward.

Here’s a video from right after the install:

Fun Activity

What kind of bees are you seeing around your place? Check out what Healthy Recipes posted in July 2025. Chris found this picture the other day and it really is a nice overview of some of the types of bees out there. There you can see how the Buckfast Bee compares to others.

Buckfast Bees - ChatGPT Opinion

Buckfast bee are kind of the “Swiss Army knife” of the beekeeping world 🐝⚙️

They were developed in the early 1900s by a monk named Brother Adam at Buckfast Abbey after disease wiped out much of the local bee population. He spent decades selectively breeding bees from all over Europe and the Middle East to create a colony that was productive, gentle, and hardy.

Buckfast bees are known for:

• Calm temperament. Many beekeepers say they’re easier to work without turning the hive into a tiny airborne riot.
• Strong honey production. They build up fast in spring and forage aggressively.
• Lower swarming tendency compared to some other strains.
• Good overwintering ability when properly managed.
• Excellent hygienic behavior, which can help with disease resistance.

A few tradeoffs:

• Because they’re hybrids, queens may not “breed true” if they mate naturally. A second-generation Buckfast colony can behave very differently from the original line.
• Some lines can become a bit too prolific, meaning you need to stay ahead on space management.
• Availability and quality vary a lot depending on the breeder.

Compared to Italian honey bee:

• Buckfasts are often calmer and more conservative with winter stores.
• Italians are usually easier to source and can explode with brood production.

Compared to Carniolan honey bee:

• Buckfasts tend to swarm less.
• Carniolans often winter in smaller clusters and handle cold very efficiently.

For western Pennsylvania winters, a well-bred Buckfast line can do quite well if you keep mites under control and make sure they enter winter heavy enough. Around your area, a lot of beekeepers end up liking them because they’re productive without feeling like every hive inspection is a medieval siege.

(AI Generated Buckfast Bee fact list)

Year of No Writing!?

Wow - it's been almost a year and I haven't written a word here? It's certainly been a crazy time for us over the year personally. Lots of illness, but the Apiary goes on.

Year in Review

We had two swarms in early spring. Seems like we'll need to watch the weather more closely. When do swarms happen? When the hive gets too small to support the number of bees if it happens in Spring!

If you ever see one in Butler or Saxonburg area, we're happy to come catch them!

April 27th Swarm

 

 

April 30th Swarm

 

May 1st Swarm

 

Healthy Swarms?

How do you keep the swarms healthy? Well, that can be tough. But feeding and checking them frequently can help. One of the swarms lost its queen. In that case, you can order a queen from various retailers or from a local beekeeper who sells queens. Here is our replacement queen - a Saskatraz queen.

She comes with a couple worker bees. I brought her inside while I worked so that she wouldn't get cold until I had time to suit up and go put her in the hive.

What else happened in nature during 2024?

Did you all get to see the eclipse? We headed south to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to be in the line of totality. What a sight to see!

Who stepped outside to watch aurora borealis? How cool that it would head as far south as us in PA? And not just once, but twice!

Year to Come

For the upcoming year, we have planned to attend the Western Pennsylvania Beekeeping Seminar on February 7th and 8th. I hope if you are new to beekeeping or thinking about starting this as a hobby, you come! Great information and a way to network with other beekeepers!

I've already ordered a nuc for replacing any deadouts from this winter. Mann Lake has several to choose from. This year, I am going to try OHB Golden West variety. I'll let you know what they are and how it goes!

Extreme Cold

Our recent extreme cold has left us short a couple hives since November. Chris noted we lost at least two. We haven't had cold like this in a while. It can be very difficult to keep them going during cold months.

One thing you can do is wrap the hives. We do this with either bee cozies - yes, you read that right. Or just using Expanded Polystyrene Board Insulation and a little bit of duct tape.

The other thing is to keep them happy by feeding them. There's lots of recipes. I can't say which one is best - but you do what you want to do. This year we are trying Pro-Winter Feed. We have tried sugar patties, fondant and other forms of feed. We have bought the fondant in bulk from Stover & Company from down in Cheswick, PA.

Get Ahead of Swarms

So what is our plan to limit the number of swarms this year? We are going to restudy Randy Oliver's article on The Swarming Impulse. What are his tips?

• Check hives early - in March for us in PA. Look for swarm cells.
• Put a box on early. Bees work upward in the hive. So if they get to the lid and need more space, they need another box - even if the bottom box is empty.

Call us if you see one! I'm happy to come out and collect it - if it isn't too high or in a wall.... Swarms happen during April through early June. You can see swarms later in the year, but in PA, those are the typical months.

Check Your Skills

What is this bump out on the frame? And what kind?

Spring is so close!

As spring approaches, for you new beekeepers - check out the following article from BetterBee!  It is the best guide into becoming a new beekeeper:

Bottling Honey

What goes into bottling honey, you ask?

Honey Comb - is it ready?

Well, an ol' timer may say to not extract honey that isn't capped.  Why?  The bees will "cap" honey when the moisture content is right and then it is ready.  See the photo below?  That's what "capped" honey looks like.  It has a hard surface that holds the honey back - it's basically a layer of new wax the bees put over it to protect it when they know it is at the right moisture level.  If you take it before, it will be tough to remove the moisture from it.

There is a certain amount of water that is contained in honey.  However, too much and it could ferment if you don't eat it fast enough.  The acceptable level is somewhere between between 15.5% and 18.6% with high quality under 17%.

How do you measure the content?  Well, again, your experience beekeeper will only extract the capped honey above.  And that's what Christian did.  Me as the scientific mind wanted to know what it really was.

Extraction

Equipment Needed:  Knife, comb scratcher, food grade bucket (like a honey bucket) and an extractor (plus a food grade bin to cut the wax into)

Being cheap, I decided to get the VINGLI 2 Frames Manual Honey Extractor Separator, Food Grade Stainless Steel Honeycomb Spinner Drum Crank by Hand with Adjustable Height Stands, Beekeeping Pro Extraction Apiary Centrifuge Equipment from Amazon.  Christian had to modify it this year.  It isn't sturdy enough on its legs to not rock.  Dad and Christian removed the legs and put in its place 2x4 legs with a base of plywood on the bottom.  Standing on the plywood, it doesn't rock now.

Anyway - using the knife (get a honey uncapping knife), cut the wax capping off the frame.  Usually, you can place the knife against the frame and cut up/down.  Also, for ease, you can balance on the side of a food grade bin to cut them into.

Then you place two at a time in the extractor and spin.  When the bin fills up, you let it empty into a food grade honey bucket.  Once you are done (with all your buckets), put a lid on and leave it sit for 24 hours.  This allows it to settle.

As a side note, we do use a filter at the bottom of the extractor and on the top of the bucket.  This keeps chunkiness down.  Also, I then save the wax, the filtered mess and melt it down later.  You'll go through several more filtering when you melt down the wax.

Science

You thought I wasn't going to say anything about the percentage, didn't you?

Using a refractometer, you can determine the percentage of moisture in the honey.  What does it look like?  Take a peek, because I'm super proud:

Less than 17% - ya, that's good honey!

Bottling

After you waited a couple days to let the air settle out of the honey in the buckets, you can use the spout at the bottom and carefully fill bottles.  Oh pick any bottle you like.  I see in our area that an ounce is about $1 each or a little more.  Make yourself some labels and be sure to add the nutrition labels.

I tell everyone that I give a bottle to that they should not feed to infants under 1.  (Side note: I am only selling to friends; but if I were selling it on a bigger scale, I would totally put a label on the bottle for it.)  There's labels for that and informational ones like how to liquify honey.  Actually, there's a whole business in labels on Etsy and various beekeeper shops.

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That's the process in a nutshell.  We had 58 bottles total (about 7 gallons of honey), plus a small jelly canning jar for that last little bit in the honey bucket.  And you guessed it - they are 16 ounce bottles for $16.  Get them while they are here!  Next?  What to do with all the cappings and extra wax!  (PS> I'm so proud of Christian.  What an accomplishment to finally have the honey to sell!  Last year, we had 20 bottles that we shared with friends and family.)

Liquid Gold

We harvested honey! Yes, it was late you may say.  However, life was in the way and we noted that the bees were still working on the clover in our yard.  It paid off!

Looking for some honey?  Contact us now to get a bottle!  A 16ox bottle is $20.

Helping Friends

It was a cold snowy day on March 26th.  Even with the weather, we still drove down to Washington, PA to pickup a hive.  Our friend is moving to New Mexico.  Rather than trying to move the bees thousands of miles, it's easier to move them 60 miles.

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Pickup

At around 7:30, we just barely got the box wrapped up before snow started falling.  We put a screen on the inner cover with duct tape to keep the bees inside, but able to breath.  Chris then lifted both deep boxes together onto a slightly larger piece of plywood.  Before carrying it, we secured the whole setup with a couple of ratchet straps.  Then Chris carried it up the hill to the car.

As we drove home, the snow let loose!

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Home

Once we made it home, it was a quick process.  You can see we will need to transition them to a 10-frame hive, because they are currently in an 8-frame hive.  Now we will leave them for a transitioning period for at least two weeks.  The next nice day, they will send out scouts to reset their gps.

In other news, this takes our hive count to five.  Hopeful for a great honey season!