Tag Archives: nuc
My Failure as a Beekeeper: Part V
When a colony has lost its queen and not replaced her, the hive is almost certain to die a slow and sorrowful death. The great plans we had for this small nuc – a source of a pound or two … Continue reading
My Failure as a Beekeeper: Part IV
This is the fourth piece in my six-part description of my colossal failure as a beekeeper this summer. If you’ve been following this little series, you saw how I acquired a little queenless nuc, transported it to my home, and … Continue reading
Posted in Beekeeping
Tagged Alberta, Calgary, family, nuc, queenless hives, Queens, Tolstoy, weak hives
10 Comments
My Failure as a Beekeeper: Part III
Over the past few days, I’ve been writing about the misadventures of a small queenless hive which we placed in our back yard this summer. It dutifully raised several nice queen cells. At the time, I worried about the greedy … Continue reading
My Failure as a Beekeeper: Part II
Yesterday, I started to describe my rather lousy year as a beekeeper. It began with an intentionally weak queenless hive. I picked it up at my daughter’s farm and brought it into my back yard, here in the city of … Continue reading
Posted in Beekeeping, Friends
Tagged Alberta, Calgary, family, nuc, queen cells, weak hives
2 Comments
My Failure as a Beekeeper: Part I
I’ve worked with bees for almost fifty years, raising queens, pollinating crops, making oodles of honey. I grew up in a beekeeping family (so my 50 years started really early). Over that long time period, I worked for some really … Continue reading
Moving the Bees
Yesterday, I wrote about nuking the bees. Today, it’s moving the bees. My nuc started out on my daughter’s farm, 130 kilometres east of my home in Calgary. That’s over an hour’s drive, out on the prairie, away from the … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Biology, Beekeeping, Commercial Beekeeping, Hives and Combs, Tools and Gadgets
Tagged Alberta, moving bees, nuc, wasps
3 Comments
Nuking the Bees
If you’re a beekeeper, you probably already know all about nucs, the little hives from which big things are supposed to grow. If you’ve made nucs for fun or profit, then you have your own system – maybe two frames … Continue reading
Backstory for the Bees
Yesterday evening, I brought a small hive of bees to my back yard. It was thrilling. That may seem odd to those of you who read this blog regularly. (Did you miss my Urban Beekeeper post?) Surely I’ve got dozens … Continue reading
