Another Deadly Year For Beekeepers

In the 2024 season, like so many others in recent history, we lost a few hives over the winter. With that loss came some changes. We've relocated much of our equipment that we had at the Funny Farm back to our home location. We sold a hive to the Funny Farm to help them out a bit, and the money went toward much-needed apiary supplies and bees for 2025.

Starting Over in 2025

Then we ordered 3 nucs from Holt's Apiary in St. Albans, ME, as theirs are always really good and strong. They came in in early May, and we installed them into the 3 deadout hives we had from last year. So, we had a major setback, but we are still thinking positively! The 3 new nucs, we are hoping, will grow very swiftly, and we can do a couple of splits. With a couple of splits, that will bring us back up to 5 hives, our halfway point. Yes, we are only halfway to where we were before the die-offs from our debut in Maine! But, we will get back to 10. It just may take a little time.

With that in mind, we were also experimenting with a couple new techniques in beekeeping. So, though we hope we don't lose them, I am thinking there is a good chance we will lose at least a couple while we get used to a new way of doing things.

The Summer of 2025: A Perfect Storm

The summer of 2025 was not "come back year" sadly. We had a major drought followed by a recovery, then an end of summer drought. Very little food stores were made by bees. And the end of summer drought meant they ate more of their winter stores. Worse than that though, an end of summer drought means bees know they are running out of time to make food. So, they steal it from other hives! Our hives were overpowered by larger populations and other bees. So, by December we had lost all 3 hives. Nationally colony loss was nearly 60% for other reasons. So that and the drought just gave us a beating. We cleaned up the hives and got them ready for new bees in the spring. Hopefully 3 nucs at least! Then we go from there. So, Baby Steps…!

Moving Forward

Modern beekeeping with all the issues bees are having is hard enough. So, it is trial and error until we get enough hives that grow in strength that we can make splits and populate more hives to make up for losses. But with only 3 to start with, it's rough. Again, baby steps.