Bee Blog

The bees are doing well. Actually, the colonies at my homestead are exploding with bees – great sign. I did lose the small NUC at McCook Lake IWL but the full colony is still alive!! That means I am currently at 75% survivor rate. I will take it. It sounds like the commercial beekeepers are seeing 70-80 % loss this winter. It is reminiscent of the CCD losses seen in 2006 – 2008. Very scary.

As promised, I wanted to add an update of checking my colonies in the winter with the new thermal camera.

Hive C

Here is a thermal photo from Jan 28, 2025. It was a warm morning and you can really see the heat (yellow) radiating from the colony. I take these first thing in the morning before the sun can warm the outside causing a false reading.

Hive C

It was definitely a colder morning on Feb 17, 2025. At first, I thought maybe the colony was shrinking as winter bees will diminish. After looking (quickly) into both of my colonies last week, that is not the case. This colony has 10 frames of bees all the way into the bottom box.

We are starting to look into spring fairs and markets. Stay tuned to our Facebook page for updates on upcoming events. Some of our raw honey sizes are limited but our hot/creamed are available.

It is going to be a busy year as I intend to do some grafting and expanding the apiaries. It has been too long since taking the grafting class at the U of MN. It is time to just jump right into it.

Two new products we are considering this year are: comb honey and soap made with tallow. I am going to replace a couple ingredients in my regular soap recipe with tallow. It does not change our bar characteristic by much at all. I love my current soap formula/recipe. We are going to try a 4 ingredient soap bar with all tallow except for a little bit of my beeswax – fingers crossed. This is a larger post but I skipped last month, so take care and bee kind.

Wow!! What a year!! As 2024 comes to a close, we want to take a moment to thank all our family, friends and customers for their support. Let’s not forget our little healthy girls taking care of the colony to include storing all that wonderful nectar (honey as we know it). This gave us the opportunity to invest in our little side hustle with some new equipment and donate $166.00 to the McCook Lake IWL chapter in support of future projects. We added 2 new honeys to our product list – Hot Honey & Cinnamon Creamed Honey. As a whole, it was a great year.

After moving to South Dakota, we pretty much started all over with our honeybee colonies. As I look forward to 2025, my main goal is to expand and grow our bee yards. The colonies are looking strong and all were flying out the last week of December as temperatures were well above 40°F. Great sign!! This will afford us the opportunity to sell bees and NUC colonies locally grown in SD (winter hardy). Another goal will be adding comb honey to our product list. Customers keep asking for comb honey when we participate in local fairs and markets. I am not sure how I will package it but knowing me, it will be glass jars as we try to use as little plastic as possible.

With that said, we want to wish everyone a Happy New Year!! We look forward to seeing you soon at a fair/market or at our little homestead purchasing our wonderful products. Take care and Bee Kind!!

First, I cannot believe it is December already. I have put my colonies to bed for the winter. I had to do some combining, so I am going to over-winter 4 total colonies – 3 double deep and 1 5/5 NUC. They all have a candy board (extra food) and 3 have insulation for winter protection. I plan to closely watch the 2 at my home beeyard.

I recently purchased a thermal camera to assist monitoring the size of my over wintering colony clusters (I hope). This is a new learning experience for me so feel free to reach out and help educate me with my new tool. If you look at the photos below, you can see a camera pic on the left and thermal pic on the right. I am using fusion palette on the thermal camera. You can definitely see the cluster on the left colony (the yellow in bottom box) with the insulation on top. The right colony without insulation (some yellow at the handle) was harder to see. I am confident there is a colony on the right – it might be smaller or more centralized in the hive.

My goal is to check these colonies with the thermal camera at the beginning of each month and compare with the previous pictures. If we get any warm days above 40 degrees, I may pop the top and replace the candy board. This will be done quickly in less than 30 seconds, so no pictures of this process.

XIX Brewing Company completed their Silver and Gold Holiday Beer Release. There are limited quantities available so don’t wait, go get your set today!!

Silver is a pre-dinner beer, a dry belgian-style dubbel. Gold is a sweeter imperial brown ale made with our honey and date fruit. It’s just right for that after dinner dessert.

I want to thank all of our customers, friends and family for coming out and supporting the Holiday Beer Set Release at XIX Brewing Company. It was a fun night with the Standstill Parade of Lights on main street. After bottling, there was a small amount put on tap to try before purchasing. These tap beers won’t last long, that’s for sure. I really like the touch of using wax to seal the top of each bottle. Fingers crossed this is one of many future beers brewed with Jovin’s Honey!!

Quick update on our cinnamon creamed honey: I finished the label, however, I am going back to 1/2 pint canning jars like the original creamed honey. I like the sides being straight up/down and the potential for re-use (canning, storing) when the honey is gone. I am struggling to keep these in stock at the moment. I am glad everyone is enjoying our new product!!

Thats all for now, so like my bees, stay safe and warm until the new buds of spring start showing.

It has been busy on the bee farm. I have almost put all the colonies to bed for the winter. I want to add some candy boards as a back up resource for the colonies, then I will wrap/protect them for the winter.

We have some upcoming craft fairs just in time to get some great honey/wax gifts for the holiday season. Stop by, follow our Facebook page and receive a complimentary honey straw. I have also updated most of our online store pictures. Once I update our current stock, we will turn the shop back on for local pick up. Finally!!

Stay tuned, I hope to have another update this month regarding a new customer – venture with Vermillion’s local brewery XIX Brewing Company. They are using some of my honey in their next brew creation. I am very excited and can’t wait to taste it.