“Fruitless Fall”, by Rowan Jacobsen, has been a hot book around here these past weeks. My turn came just a few days ago so I’m only part way through, but this sentence made me smile because it puts my (limited) experience with bees in a nutshell:

“Rather than a domesticated species, eager for human contact, bees are more like a divine force, and beekeeping often resembles a form of supplication.”

Divine force, absolutely. Supplication, yup.

We had 11 hives heading into winter, and nine of them came through. One of the colonies was lost because the hive cover was blown off — we don’t know for how long but in any case even a short while without a cover would surely have been too much for the poor bees. The other colony we lost had been transferred to one of the new Warré hives, and hadn’t built up enough strength before winter.

Jean-Pierre’s objective for this year is to phase out three of the remaining Langstroth hives, which would leave four, and finish the season with 6 healthy Warré hives. He has continued researching the Warré (there is more and more information out there, an encouraging sign), and has settled on another design for the top bar. I can’t really describe it but he seems pleased!

We have been feeding the bees for the past couple of weeks, and tomorrow Jean-Pierre will head out to inspect the hives in detail and do some cleaning up. We’ll have a hive health report then.