There’s a lot of them, and they’re actively buzzing around. I suppose they’ll have a good chance to survive the winter, unless a bear gets them. I probably won’t take much if any honey, so they’ll have more.

  • nomad@infosec.pub
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    4 days ago

    If you take honey, just give them a big bowl of sugar water and they will be fine. Just don’t take too much before the winter.

  • brvslvrnst@lemmy.ml
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    4 days ago

    Take the bear seriously! Our first year a mom and cub came and had a rowdy time

    Got an electric fence right quick after that. The hive survived though, and ended up swarming this year but my wife caught it and now we’ve got 2 boxes 🙃

  • Jerb322@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I like how you can tell a couple of them are doing the “the flowers are here” dance, by the side to side blur.

  • zergtoshi@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    You did check the honey they’ve collected for melezitose honey?
    If there’s too much melezitose in the honey (around 10% appears for be the critical amount), it cristallses and bees can’t eat it during winter, which is bad for obvious reasons.

      • zergtoshi@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        If you’ve never experienced it it’s apparently not around in dangerous amounts, but that can eventually change.
        It can be found in flowers (although I don’t know which) and in honeydew.
        I’ve lost one hive to it some years ago when I wasn’t aware of that danger (and all went great until then) and now I’m extra careful.
        The bees starved/froze in place when it was to cold for them to move to another area and all they could find at their place was crystallised honey.
        I found them not moving with a big pile of grated crystals below.
        Nowadays I rather take plenty of honey from them and feed them properly for winter.