First Post

Obviously, this is my first post to this blog (or to any 'blog' for that matter). So the question is, how much do I really want to put into this first post? Do I go into a lot of introductory detail about the beekeeping efforts of my dad, myself, and our support cast, which would be a lot of thought and effort? Or do I just start right now, posting about what's going on right now and provide that kind of detail as I proceed?

As I've proven to myself that if I try to get everyone caught up chronologically, I'll never get to the current time, I think I'll go with the latter, although maybe with at least a brief introduction.

Several years ago, my dad and I, with support from Jen and my mom, got into beekeeping. We got two hives, installed them at my parents' acreage in northeast Iowa, between Dike and Parkersburg, and set about trying to coax them into living, thriving, and producing.

We've had two summers of bees, overwintering (somewhat) successfully last year and not so successfully this year. We lost one hive ('Wilma', our "strong" hive) late in the fall - it appears it went queenless, population diminished, wax moths moved in, and we had to cut our losses for that hive. The other hive, 'Betty', looked quite strong; we stacked one deep from Wilma, strong with honey, on top, wrapped it for winter, and thought we'd get through the winter with one good hive. Unfortunately, winter was a tad extreme. Dad knows they were alive in early February, but then we had two final weeks of single-digit and subzero temperatures, which didn't allow them to break cluster and move around in the hive and they didn't make it - starved within inches of more food.

We'll be getting set up again here in a couple of months. This allows us the opportunity to move our hives to a different location if we wish, to start fresh, but with a lot of good foundation, to continue to learn and try to get better at cohabitating with our little bee-buddies.

Hopefully, I'll post our progress and some pictures and quite possibly, somebody some day might even read this!!