A Couple Helpful Beekeeping Tips

1.  Keep a close eye on your hives.  If something happens, you'll have a better shot at fixing it before it's too late. 

2.  Keep your bee suits handy, even in the winter.

3. Ratchet straps are your friends.  Sure, they're a little fiddly to put on and take off, but if a tornado blows through, the cows get loose, the ground gets super saturated and your hive falls over...  

Yep, one of Stella's hives fall over last night.

 

Sometimes with bees, you just have to get lucky.  Too Busy Bees got lucky today.  That hive tipped over on a 50+ degree day.  The hive was still really heavy and we unfortunately we had to take it apart to lift it back up on the stabilized blocks.  If it had been colder or raining, those bees would really have been in dire straights.

But, like anything else, the harder your work, the luckier you get.  Stella keeps a close eye on her hives and called me first thing this morning to let me know we had a problem.  She had all the necessary equipment on hand and we were able to work quickly.  A simple ratchet strap holding everything together until we could set things right was our ace in the hole. 

While you hope you never need your insurance policies, they are good to have it if you do.  I just hope those ungrateful, angry bees remember that ;-).