Hambden Honey

26/06/2026

16/06/2026

We always knew it was possible, but we never thought it would happen to us.

Bears are a natural predator to apiaries. Though contrary to belief, they aren't after the honey; the honey is just a bonus. Bears like to eat the brood and larvae from the hives, often eating frames completely clean.

We have learned lots about bears in the last few weeks, especially about how they are recolonizing the northeast Ohio area. The only way to protect our apiaries from bears is with a bear grade electric fence. Don't worry, this doesn't hurt the bear, just trains it to avoid the area.

We consider ourselves fortunate because we only lost two colonies, as there are beekeepers who lose entire apiaries in one night to a bear attack.

30/05/2026

Wow, we really hope swarm season is over!

While swarms are natural, we try our best to avoid them for a few reasons.

-The more mature forager bees are leaving with the original queen which can lead to less honey production.

-Swarms can end up in bad places: homes, residential structures, or on a temporary surface where they end up killed.

-As the original hive tries to raise a new queen, the new queen isn't guaranteed to mate successfully or survive which results in the loss of the original hive without additional intervention.

Any time we see a swarm, we try to catch it. Enjoy some of the other swarms we found and saved this year!

27/05/2026

Swarms, while intimidating, are surprisingly docile. You can even pick them up with your hands as long as you are gentle! This swarm found it's way to a fruit tree where we had to carefully identify and remove the queen, then gather up as many bees as we could with our hands and relocate to the nuc box. Once we got enough bees with their queen in their new home, they fan the queen's pheromone to encourage the rest of the swarm to join them.

25/05/2026

SWARMS! Have you ever seen one?? Or heard one?? They're pretty cool to experience.

When a strong hive comes out of winter, it's natural instinct is to reproduce. When a colony has plenty of bees and reserves such as honey, pollen and bee bread the hive knows that it's in a good position to raise a new queen and divide itself. When the new queens hatch, the original queen along with thousands of bees prepare for a new home while the new queens fight to the death for the next reigning queen.

On the next warm, sunny day these bees flee the hive in a SWARM to a temporary resting spot while they decide where their next permanent home will be.

If we're lucky, we can intervene and capture the swarm, which can look a little something like this...

16/05/2026

We've been working hard to prepare nucs! One step in the process is raising queens to ensure a strong and productive new hive.

Ever wonder what that looks like?!

Here is Ben with a purposely queenless, very strong, hive letting bees do what they do best.. raise a quality queen.

This "grafting frame" goes into the hive after manually placing young larva into the cell cups and the bees immediately start raising these larva as potential new queens.

After the bees cap the larva inside the queen cell we remove the queen cells and place in an incubator until the hatch, then we place in a strong nuc. Or we can place the cells directly into a nuc where they will hatch when they're ready!

We find that our overwintered colonies produce the best quality queens and nucs.

In case you were wondering, YES, we have had great overwintering success and are still making nucs available for purchase!

10/05/2026

22/03/2026

We're at Stonegait Winery today selling our spring, summer and hot varieties of honey. Stop in and try some and check out all the other local vendors at the Sip+Shop event today! 🐝🍯