Bee Whyld Yukon Update

Four spring bee hives

Dandelion

Spring Crocuses

It’s spring!! The dandelions have been out for a couple weeks now, and just last week we came across a number of my favorite flowers, crocuses!! Bees love both of these early flowers!!

In a beekeeper’s world, spring is a busy time. Before too much is actually done with the bees, there is a little time to build/repair boxes, frames and other equipment for the busy honey-producing season to come. This is exactly what’s been happening at Bee Whyld.

New Equipment

Unpacking the new extractor

It’s pretty exciting when new equipment arrives. This year it is in the form of an electric, 20-frame extractor, or honey spinner! Everyone who experienced last year’s harvest with our little two-frame hand spinner can dearly appreciation the huge contribution this piece of equipment will make to this year’s, hopefully much larger, harvest!

Preparation for Our New Bee Hives

The designer and carpenter

End of the day

With the arrival of 60 new hives scheduled for later this month, the Bee Whyld Team (including the recruitment of a couple friends – thank you Leatha and Emily) has been very busy in the shop building and painting supers (honey boxes).

Assembly line team work

With access to Liz’s bee-keeping expertise from New Zealand, we plan to try our hand at splitting a few of the stronger hives this spring. As a result, additional brood boxes (where the queen lays eggs) were also added to the assembly line.

School Tour

Honey bee presentation in progress

Bee Whyld was honored to spend a day at Johnson Elementary School in Watson Lake, Yukon. The students learned about all the jobs in a beehive, the role of the queen bee, worker bee and drone bee, and the role of the beekeeper. Everyone got to peek in a beehive (minus the bees!) and try his/her hand at running the extractor. And, of course, there was honey to taste. Our delectable, local Fireweed Honey was deemed the favorite and the very different Dandelion Honey received mixed reviews.

Signed by all the students

Sharing our passion of honey bees with six different classes of enthusiastic students made for a fun and fulfilling day.

Candle Making

Candle making is back in full swing. I decided to try some charcoal filtered wax for some white candles. I still think my preference is the more traditional yellow beeswax. With yellow beeswax on order, both yellow and white candles will be available for sale shortly.

Yellow and white beeswax candles

The Bees

Four of our six hives survived the winter. The queens have been busy creating numerous frames of brood. The brood boxes were rotated and a super added last week. Tons of pollen is being carried  in daily, and with the early dandelions, the first honey of 2016 is already in production.