The Body in the Back Garden by Mark Waddell

As a couple they’ve been charming honey bees for over 10 years. Monica and Todd Warner own and operate The Carolina Bee Company, a small family-run beekeeping business located in the North Carolina Piedmont (specifically, Vance County). Good luck out there! Now, work on catching up so that you to can get “ahead of your bees!” But get out there! As wise old Bill Waddell says, “You’ve got to keep ahead of your bees!” Just make sure you make achievable goals and don’t fret if you don’t get to everything. Once you start getting organized, other ideas will pop up. plan hive movements (moving a small hive is MUCH easier than moving a large hive).seriously think about replacing your oldest brood comb and plan for that.check that your stored equipment is in decent shape and not invaded by mold or wax moths.take inventory of the equipment you have.check your bees when you can, and feed if need be.We all got an extended winter this year, but that doesn’t mean that we received a bunch of free prep time, get off your duff and… You know you need to get ready and Spring has already effectively sprung. So, view this article as a kick in the behind (and yes, we are including ourselves in this). You rotate your wax, right? More on that another time. The labor needed to assemble frames only becomes a much larger problem as you expand the number of hives under management, especially if you also replace wax every year. That also means you need to assemble a total of at least 80 – 100 frames. If you wanted to go from 2 hives to 4 hives, and you are using 10-frame Langstroth hive equipment… that means you have to purchase, assemble and paint 2 bottom boards, 2 tops, 4 brood chambers and 4 – 6 additional honey supers (let’s be optimistic while we are at it). Think about it by doing a bit of algebra. With honey bees, how much honey that is generated, and how healthy those bees are throughout the year, boils down to how well they start off that year.Īre your frames overdue for repair and cleanup? Much like a pregnancy, that baby is coming! The baby will not wait, and your honey bees will not wait. It is really that simple (deceptively simple). But that is what makes it so powerful a message. His advice “ You’ve got to keep ahead of your bees!” sounds simple and sounds like it applies to just about anything if you take out the bit about honey bees. So, what should you be doing now, but aren’t? The best advice we have ever received came from an ol’ timer beekeeper (Bill Waddell of My Daddy’s Honey). We are all affected by the change of seasons, but we all have different triggers for what is important to us. So, lazy beekeeper, you are in good company.įirst of all, you may notice that the beekeeping year doesn’t line up with how the typical civilian separates the seasons. The Beekeeping Year for the Piedmont of NC.

The Body in the Back Garden by Mark Waddell