Beautiful evening for a brief hive inspection. After the visit from the bear last week, I’ve been wanting to check out a couple of the hives that had been disturbed, particularly one that had been upended.  I wanted to ensure that the queen hadn’t been crushed when the bear turned the hive body upside down. All was good, except…I saw a second bear out there!  More on this later…

This ain’t no picnic basket, Boo Boo!  We’ve got a bear in the beeyard and he appears to be a messy eater!  Visit our facebook page for the complete adventure and photo story at the BumbleBerry Farms facebook page  and while you’re there, be sure to “like” us!

These little beauties were tentatively curious about me on my morning run, but stopped long enough for this quick pic.

It was raining cats and dogs outside when I got the call that my colonies of honeybees had arrived. Loaded up my pick-up with newly assembled and painted hives boxes and headed across the mountain to Dividing Ridge where Gene from White Horse Mountain Apiary was pulling into his driveway, his truck filled with nucleus colonies of honey bees.  Nucs consist typically of a queen and at least five frames of drawn honeycomb brimming with new brood and honey bees.  Working under the cover of an open-air garage, Gene and I transferred 10 colonies of bees to my hive bodies or boxes.  Returning to BumbleBerry Farms, I hauled the colonies one-by-one to the beeyard on the back of my quad-runner where I integrated the new colonies into my apiary.

Bees settled, the work is done.  Time for a glass of pinot noir and my hot tub.

First opportunity to check on my bees after this long winter. General observation showed honeybees buzzing about the entrances of every hive but one–a hive where I’d combined two weak colonies before winter. Didn’t have high expectations that they’d survive, but was hopeful. I pulled out a frame, only to see a large hole in the wax. Hmmmm? Upon closer inspection, I found a mother field mouse with four still-pink, furless newborns. Life ends. Life begins.

Check out recent coverage by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on this new program for women-owned start-ups.  See article featuring BumbleBerry Farms at http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/business/news/myboard-virtual-mentor-program-helps-entrepreneurs-develop-businesses-680584/.

Casey, BumbleBerry’s 2012 Summer Intern, and Natalie–both students at the University of Pittsburgh put their business skills to use manning our booth at Pittsburgh’s Farm to Table event.  Awesome job, ladies!