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I've been keeping this blog for all of my beekeeping years and I am beginning my 19th year of beekeeping in April 2024. Now there are more than 1300 posts on this blog. Please use the search bar below to search the blog for other posts on a subject in which you are interested. You can also click on the "label" at the end of a post and all posts with that label will show up. At the very bottom of this page is a list of all the labels I've used.

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I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here.Master Beekeeper Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Revisiting Bee Tea

It's been over a week since I have fed either Blue Heron or Valerie's hives - I decided to take care of that today so I went with Julia to Blue Heron before I went to work and to Topsy at a break after lunch.  Here is the process of making the bee tea and the feeding of the hives.

I put a slideshow up because I am now including both chamomile and thyme from my garden in the bee tea.  Interestingly, the hive at Blue Heron had only used half of the baggie syrup and almost none of the pint jar in the Boardman on the interior.

I wonder if they have run out of storage room?  Or if the aster blooming in the fields is meeting their current needs?  Or if I hadn't cut long enough slits in the baggie or had clogged holes in the jar lid of the Boardman?  I cut longer slits in the baggie and changed out the pint jar for a jar with a better lid.

We'll see this weekend when Julia and I revisit these hives to do a final consolidation for winter.



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2 comments:

  1. Linda, what's the purpose of bee tea? What makes it better than sugar syrup?

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  2. The thyme helps combat the varroa mite. The chamomile is supposed (according to Ross Conrad) to promote bee health. The whole concoction is supposed to strengthen the bees' immune system. Other than that, it IS sugar syrup! I don't want to lose any more hives and want the three I have to make it through the winter, so I'll do almost ANYTHING that might promote that.

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