Bee Blog

As the month of June begins, so does my new skill of grafting (finally). I might be being hopeful calling it a skill. Practice will definitely make perfect on this one. I will update you more next month on my success or failures.

Swarm season is definitely in full throttle as I have caught a couple swarms with one being my own. I was too late for a swarm call as the bees must have found a new home by the time I arrived on scene. I hope it was a good one for their sake.

The splits I created last month are showing signs of success. The new queens have started laying and the colonies are full of pollen and nectar. I did have one colony abscond before I was able to check and see if the queen got mated. I try not to get into the colonies to soon as young, virgin queens like to fly off when you pull out the frame. Ask me how I know – patience is a struggle for me and waiting 4 weeks to check a colony is difficult. I did see a lot of bee activity just a few days before, so it was a recent departure.

We have had family, friends and customers ask about both tallow and frankincense in our wax products. As I was replenishing our stock of balms and wax products, I created a few new ones. I made a soap, lip balm, facial cream and body cream – all with tallow as the main ingredient.

The face cream has frankincense and lemongrass essential oils to help with aging, wrinkles and improve skin tone. The body cream has cedarwood and lavender essential oils to help soothe skin, reduce inflammation and irritation or redness.

Mrs. Herder is already trying the new creams. We will make sure these are safe as results will vary by person as seems the case.

We are already starting to book up for the late summer and fall with fairs/markets. I think we are at 7 or 8 for the time being. Hopefully we will see you at one of these and maybe we will have our new products for you to check out.

There has been a lot going on at the homestead. BUT FIRST – you have less than 3 weeks until World Bee Day 2025. Do you have your call to action ready? Maybe it is time to replenish your honey and support a local beekeeper, planting some flowers, shrubs or trees, refrain from mowing the lawn (No Mow May), add a bird bath to your landscape or balcony; or the ultimate – add a hive/colony of bees to your property. Now is the time to plan/prepare!!

The basement hobby/business kitchen is completed. I have already done some baking and final sap boiling from the maple trees. Very soon I hope to make some soap, with one being all beef tallow. I have received a request to make a Frankincense feet balm. I will have to play around with that formula a little and do some family product testing, so no expected launch date yet.

My colonies are looking really good. I hope to pick up 2 new hives in the next couple weeks (sponsored/adopted by DB – thank you!!). My goal is to do some grafting and turn those 2 colonies into 10 Nucleus colonies shortly after I receive them. I will also be splitting my over wintered colonies to avoid any swarming. It is that season and it’s how bees reproduce. See Swarm Removal for more information or if you find a swarm of honeybees.

I will have some upcoming events and fairs for anyone needing a sweet Mother’s Day or Father’s Day present. Otherwise, I am usually home if you want to purchase products directly at our homestead. I am looking forward to another successful honeybee season!!

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.