Sweet As Can Bee

SOLD!! — In the winter of 2022 we lost our last hive. We took a year off to decide what our next steps would be and now we are ready to part with all of our beekeeping equipment. It was a great 10 years beekeeping as a family! If someone is interested in trying out beekeeping without a large financial investment, this is the time! (Especially since Valhalla is currently taking bee orders …) Everything you need to set up a hive and additional harvesting equipment—plus a lot of extras—for $300. The catch: I don’t want to sort & clean equipment, so you expect that much of it is older and beekeeping-dirty—and you have to take everything. Here is a partial list:
Supers - 9
Lids - 3
Base -1
Lots of extra frames
Covers - 3
Gloves - 4 sets
Brushes - 3
Smoker
Propane torch & extra fuel
Entrance reducer
Hive tools 2
Cut comb cutter
Top feeder
Queen excluder
Spacer
1 good suit
2 suit toppers
4 coveralls
Tub for straining honey
Dadent 2-frame extractor
I’ll even throw in “Beekeeping for Dummies”! Comment if you are interested!

Hello friends,

I want to inform you all on LB 735. This bill will address some of the many issues we're dealing with when it comes to pollinators, specifically the bee population of Nebraska. For decades, the state of Nebraska had its own apiary program which would keep track of the many beekeepers across the state. This was a successful program but was ended in the early 2000's. This bill would help to resuscitate this program and have it under the jurisdiction of the University of Nebraska's own apiary program.

Another part of this bill which might be the most important is to have research put forward to understand why the bee population continues to decline across the state.

If you or someone you know is interested in testifying in favor of this bill, please contact my office by calling 402-471-2627.

Thank you all for being concerned citizens, it's a honor to serve legislative district 3.

LB 735:
https://nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/108/PDF/Intro/LB735.pdf

UMN Extension is hosting a Pollinator Habitat Webinar Series! Register for the series here: https://umn.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sYBn3XRFTDq2eYbiAHmRgQ


Tuesday, Jan. 31st: Pollinator-Friendly Garden Julie Weisenhorn, UMN Extension Horticulture Educator


Wednesday, Feb. 1st: Bee Lawns- James Wolfin, Conservation Specialist


Thursday, Feb. 2nd: Navigating Natives: Tools and Resources for Starting a Pocket Prairie- Sam Talbot, UMN Extension Educator, Dakota County

Check out this amazing piece of art, made by our first beekeeper, Kaspar Haake, with wax from our first years of honey extraction! You can see it in person at Kepler Gallery on Nebraska Wesleyan University’s campus.

Shared by a beekeeper friend:

The bees are all tucked in for the winter!

Repotting my saguaro cactus turned into an adventure with pollinators! When I pulled up the dried-out root structure in an old, dead outdoor plant, I discovered a line of leafcutter bee cocoons (and two dead leafcutter bees). I transplanted the cocoons into our native bee house and then moved forward with uprooting the saguaro—and discovered a wasp nest under the protruding root! Glad to have found that BEFORE moving the cacti in for the winter!

Harvest day! This year was a little light; there was a lot of uncapped honey that we couldn’t harvest. But what we did collect is delicious!

They don't make honey or wax and they don't live in hives or have a queen. They are crucial pollinators of many species of plants who can forage on even the tiniest of flowers such as catmint or lavender.

Holes cut by leafcutters rarely compromise the health of a plant, so gardeners can be reassured by knowing they have pollinators nesting nearby!

Today we discovered that the new hive was queenless. We decided to purchase a queen and installed her tonight. She will stay in the queen cage for a bit, sending out her pheromones throughout the hive, so by the time the bees eat through the sugar plug at the end of the cage they should be ready to accept her. 🤞