Eat. Drink. Live.
The Farm’s friend Brian has an different way of keeping bees. He uses different equipment to house the bees horizontally instead of vertically, and espouses a hands-off, no-treatment philosophy. Basically, a do-not-disturb the bees effort. He caught a swarm, and […]
Rats. The spring got away from us again. Greg collects it and put it in our empty hive body, though, so maybe not all is lost. Related posts: The Bees Swarm! Bees Swarm! Bee Class at Stone Barns Our Bees […]
Not our first hive inspection. We did one in April, saw swarm cells, and moved the queen and some brood to a new hive. This is what we’re seeing now. Drone cells. This seems OK to me in a hive […]
Well, sigh. We opened the green hive and found it was queenless. No brood whatsoever. To fix this, we decided to combine hives, using the newspaper method. You place one sheet of newspaper on top of the hive with the queen, […]
Lots of drone cells. Lots of honey. Not lots of brood. We have another problem on our hands. I think it’s a laying worker. Caught in the act! We’ll research this and let you know. Beekeeping is so fraught with […]
Another hive inspection. Related posts: Bad News on the Bees Bee Class at Stone Barns The Farm Gets a Second Hive of Bees Garden Update: Columbine, Peonies, Bees!
Time to see if our scheme worked. We will move the bees from the nuc to a hive body. Related posts: The Farm Gets a Second Hive of Bees Bad News on the Bees: We Lost the Hive The Farm […]
Swarm cells, brood. Quite a mess. Related posts: The Bees Swarm! Bees Swarm! A Second Swarm Our Bees Swarm!
Trying, as I am, to be a more hands-on bee mom, I attended a workshop on splits, hosted by the Hudson Valley Natural Beekeepers at Rainbeau Ridge Farm in Bedford. I brought Megan along for fun, too! My friend Karen […]
This year we were determined not to have a swarm. We split our white hive into a nuc box, and included some brood, some honey and some nectar, trying to trick the bees into thinking they’d already swarmed. Well maybe […]
It was warm enough to do a hive inspection. What we feared has come true: the green hive did not make it. Not enough honey. The white hive, though, is OK. Hoping there’s enough pollen now to get them off […]
Just checking on the girls. No surprise, after a swarm in May, and installing a nuc in June, that the honey stores are not full. We’ll have to keep an eye on them, and start feeding soon if we need […]
After the rough winter of 2014-15, we weren’t surprised to learn that we lost one of our hives. And also, while we were in Minnesota, several neighbors reported that we’d had a swarm from the remaining one. With one hive […]
After a big storm, we always go out and clean the snow off the roofs and porches of the hives. The bees need their air! We don’t open the hive, though, tempting as it may be. It’s too cold. The […]
The bees swarm again. We invited John and Philippe to take this one. Related posts: The Bees Swarm! Another Swarm! Our Bees Swarm! Opening the Bee Hive
Ron Breland is an organic beekeeper who lives in West Nyack with his wife, who is a terrific gardener. They make a fine pair! Greg was interviewing Ron for an article on honey and bees for The Valley Table magazine, […]
The bees swarmed again! This time, we invited Philippe and John to come over and get them. They did. They were happy to have them. And it looks like they got a queen, so all is good. Related posts: Our […]
Greg has promised to write up the saga of our bee swarm. As a cliffhanger, here’s a look at what we came home to on Wednesday evening! Related posts: The Farm Gets Bees! The Farm Gets New Bees Bad News […]
Wherein the bees swarm and congregate on the fence, Greg collects them and puts them in our empty hive. Related posts: The Farm Gets Bees! The Farm Gets a Second Hive of Bees Bad News on the Bees: We Lost […]
We took our third and final bee class at Stone Barns. We always learn a little something, even if the class is geared toward absolute new-bees. Get it? New-bees? Related posts: Bee Class at Stone Barns Drinks at Blue Hill […]
A few pics: e Related posts: Bee Class at Stone Barns Shopping in Palisades: the Market and the Farmers Market Shopping at the Pleasantville Farmers Market Pleasantville Farmers Market
Our replacement bees for the Green Hive are doing just great. But we decided to double our chances of having the bees survive over the winter by doubling our number of bees to begin with. So Sunday, Al the Bee Guy […]
After harvesting the honey, we finally got around to packaging it. Ladies and gents, we present to you our new label, logo and all things SCF. Hope you like it! We’ll be using the label (and, we think, the jar) […]
Al the Bee Guy came down from Northern Westchester bearing gifts: a 3-pound package of 15,000 little helpers for Sour Cherry Farm. They arrive in this screened-in box and he pours them into the hive like water. Here are the […]
While we wait for our new bees to arrive, it seemed an opportune time to harvest a little bit of honey. You know, while they’re not there to sting us and all? Al, our bee guy, advised us not to […]
The bees have become part of the family here at Sour Cherry Farm, so we were heartbroken to open the hive on the first warm day of winter and find that they were no longer with us. We did try […]
Stone Barns Center has started a series calleld “Beekeeping for Newbees,” and Greg and I were there to learn all about setting up the hive, the queen’s nuptial flight and other bee-related knowledge. Dan Carr, Stone Barns livestock assistant and […]
Here, John and Philippe demonstrate how to open a bee hive and check that the girls are doing OK. Related posts: The Farm Gets Bees! A Lawn Party at John and Philippe’s Bearding Bees
We were quite frightened when we first saw the bees doing this. But once our bee friends told us it was completely normal, we quite liked watching them try to stay cool in hot weather. It’s called bearding. And it […]
A short little video of our little ladies: Related posts: The Bees are Buzzing! The Farm Gets Bees! Garden Update: Currants, Bees, Apples
My husband, Greg, and I are co-founders of SCF, which chronicles what we eat, drink and grow as we raise our daughter on a tiny plot of land in the Lower Hudson Valley.
