Roca Ridge Farm

10/18/2026

🐝 Okay… we think we figured out what happened to Leo.

And believe it or not, our theory involves Charly. 😂

Leo has NEVER shown signs of preparing to swarm. We never found queen cells, and there was never any indication that his original queen was failing. In fact, Leo has consistently been our strongest hive.

So how did we suddenly end up with a new queen in Leo… with no queen cells? 🤔

Remember about a month ago when Charly appeared to be trying to requeen herself? We found several queen cells that appeared to have hatched, but we never found evidence that an accepted queen returned and started laying.

Our assumption was that the virgin queens went out to mate but couldn’t successfully return because we’re getting late in the season.

But what if one actually DID?

Here’s where things get interesting…

We have four hives sitting close together, and there’s a phenomenon called bee drift, where worker bees can occasionally enter the wrong hive. We’ve always wondered if our hive layout contributes to this because our strongest hive is on one end, with strength gradually stepping down across the apiary.

So here’s our crazy theory:

What if Charly’s queen successfully mated… flew back… and accidentally went to the wrong house? 😂

“Excuse me, is this Charly?”

“Nope. This is Leo.”

“Eh, close enough.” 🐝😂

And what if Leo accepted her and somehow replaced—or displaced—his original queen?

We can’t prove it. We may never know for certain. But the timing fits, and this theory answers a LOT of the questions we’ve been scratching our heads over.

The good news? Leo now appears to be queenright with a laying queen, and that’s a MUCH better place to be heading into winter. 🙌

If Mother Nature gives us one more warm day, we’d love to get one final inspection.

Otherwise… this mystery may have to wait until spring. 🐝

10/17/2026

🐝 We may have accidentally solved TWO mysteries today… or at least we think we did. 😂

No update on Luke today. He looked great last week, so we decided not to disturb him. Plenty of activity at the entrance, so we’re comfortable leaving him alone for now.

Sophie, on the other hand… well, we tore her apart again. 😂 Remember, we combined what was left of Charly’s hive into Sophie to boost her population going into winter. The bees accepted each other, and her queen looked great and was laying those all-important winter bees. ✅

Then there’s Leo. 🤔

Last week, our strongest hive had ZERO eggs and ZERO larvae. That definitely got our attention. The entrance was busy, and when we opened the hive, the bees were calm and looked great. Everything looked normal… except there were no babies.

So last week we added a test frame with eggs.

Why? If Leo was truly queenless, the bees should recognize those eggs as their opportunity to raise a new queen and start building queen cells.

Today, we checked that frame…

ZERO queen cells.

Okay… now we’re REALLY confused. 🤨

Then, on the very next frame, we found three larvae.

And just a few seconds later…

👀 THERE SHE WAS.

A queen.

But not Leo’s original queen. And she wasn’t marked.

Suddenly, this hive went from “What the heck is going on?” to “Wait a minute…” 😳

We were able to mark the new queen today, and she appears to have started laying.

Leo may have a new queen after all. We’re definitely not out of the woods yet, but things are looking much more promising than they did last week.

And we have a VERY interesting theory about what happened here.

But we’re keeping that one under wraps for now. 😉

Come back tomorrow… because Leo’s mystery might finally have an explanation. 🐝🔎

10/15/2026

10/11/2026

This one is going to hurt to write.

Yesterday we told you Charly’s 2026 story had come to an end. Unfortunately, Charly wasn’t the only surprise waiting for us in the apiary.

Luke was exactly what we wanted to see. Strong population, good food stores, and we found his queen looking healthy.

Then we opened Leo.

Leo had been our strongest hive for much of the year. The one we thought was going to cruise into winter.

Apparently, the bees knew winter was coming and decided it wasn’t for them. 😂

We couldn’t find the queen. Worse, there were no eggs, larvae, or capped brood.

The hive was still calm and had a strong population, but there were also no charged queen cells.

So now we’re playing detective.

We took a frame of eggs and young brood from Luke and placed it into Leo.

If Leo is queenless, the bees should recognize the problem and start building a new queen from that frame.

If they don’t build queen cells, there’s a good chance a queen is still hiding somewhere in there.

It’s basically the bee version of a pregnancy test… except the test is another frame of bees. 😂🐝

Unfortunately, even if they start a new queen, we’re extremely late in the season. Getting her emerged, mated, and laying before winter would be a long shot.

So now we wait.

Our hope is that in two weeks we find eggs and capped brood and discover that Leo’s queen was simply playing the world’s most frustrating game of hide-and-seek.

Because we’d really like to be wrong about this one.

10/10/2026

One hive fought its way back. Another one officially ran out of time. 🐝

Today was supposed to be our final inspection of the year: remove the last mite treatment, check queens, evaluate food stores, balance frames, and start winter feeding.

Naturally, the bees had other ideas. 😂

Sophie has really bounced back. She’s not our strongest hive, but she’s not weak either. We found her queen, and she looked healthy.

Then there was Charly.

As soon as we cracked the lid, the roar told us something was wrong. The empty brood frames confirmed it.

No queen. No eggs. No brood.

Charly wasn’t able to successfully requeen, and this late in the season, there’s simply not enough time to raise, mate, and establish a new queen before winter.

Charly’s 2026 story has officially come to an end.

But we’re not saying goodbye forever. We’re already looking forward to seeing what Charly’s genetics can bring back to the apiary in 2027. 🐝

So what do you do when one hive has resources but no future, while another could use a boost?

You combine them.

We moved Charly’s food stores into Sophie to give her a better shot at winter. The remaining frames were placed away from the apiary so the other colonies can recover the honey, pollen, and wax instead of letting those resources go to waste.

Basically, Charly is leaving Sophie a winter care package. 😂

Hopefully, the boost helps Sophie become a strong winter colony.

Unfortunately, Charly’s 2026 story may be over.

But he wasn’t the only hive that gave us a reason to worry.

And tomorrow’s news is worse.

09/26/2026

🐝 TODAY’S INSPECTION: GET IN, GET OUT, DON’T START A BEE WAR.

We made it out to the apiary today to apply the second dose of our Formic Pro mite treatment.

There wasn’t a whole lot of time for sightseeing today because the second we started opening the hives, we apparently sent out an invitation to every unemployed bee in the neighborhood. 😂

This time of year, nectar becomes harder to find, and that can bring out the robber bees. When a hive has only one entrance to defend, a strong colony can do a pretty good job protecting its resources. But when you’ve got the entire hive opened up, there isn’t much they can do about bees coming in from every direction.

At that point, the beekeeper’s best defense is speed. Get in, get the job done, and get the lid back on before somebody starts a bee-sized home invasion.

We have noticed an increase in dead bees around the apiary as well. That’s not necessarily a bad sign at this time of year since seasonal turnover naturally brings more dead bees, and mite treatment can also contribute. The important part is that inside the hives, the bees looked healthy and the colonies were packed with bees.

We’re also still seeing plenty of activity outside. Roca Ridge received nearly 3 inches of rain over the past week, so everything is still surprisingly green, plants are still blooming, and the girls are coming home with some seriously impressive yellow pollen sacks. 🌼🐝

The photo shows today’s Formic Pro treatment in place. Now we’ll let the treatment do its job and give the bees some peace and quiet.

Sometimes the best inspection strategy is knowing when to say, “Okay ladies, we’ll see you later.” 😂

09/21/2026

🐝 The bees are already starting to move in for winter…

As the temperatures start dropping, the bees change their behavior—and this photo is a great example of what’s happening inside the hive.

Instead of spreading throughout the hive, the colony begins clustering toward the center. You can actually see the dense cluster of bees in the middle of the photo.

Why the center? Because the bees have a plan. 🍯

The outer frames, especially those next to the cold hive walls, are typically where the colony stores much of its honey and food. The brood nest stays toward the center, where the bees can surround it and generate heat.

The cluster acts like a living furnace. 🔥🐝

The bees on the inside generate heat while the bees on the outside form an insulating layer. As winter progresses, the cluster will slowly work its way through their stored honey.

So while it may look like the bees are just hanging out in a giant pile…

They’re actually preparing for winter—and protecting the next generation.

And yes, apparently bees understand the importance of staying warm better than some of us do. 😂🐝

Winter is coming. The bees know it.

09/15/2026

🐝 We went looking for mites… but we found something we REALLY weren’t expecting. 👀

It was a great day in the Roca Ridge Apiary, and while we went into today expecting to focus on mites, we got a pretty exciting surprise along the way.

Our main mission was to start our fall mite treatment. One of the biggest factors in getting a hive through a South Dakota winter is keeping the Varroa mite load as low as possible going into the cold months.

Why treat now? 🧐

As winter approaches, the queen naturally slows down her egg laying. That means there is less capped brood, but the mites that are in the hive will continue reproducing under those capped brood cells. Taking care of them now helps prevent a mite population explosion when temperatures are too cold for us to regularly open the hive and inspect.

Our treatment runs for 20 days, so for the next three weeks we’re going to be pretty hands-off. The bees have some work to do, and the best thing we can do is let them do it without adding unnecessary stress.

Now for the REALLY cool part… 👀

We found the original Charly queen! 👑🐝

And this is big news because we weren’t expecting to find her.

She didn’t swarm, and we found young larvae, which tells us she is still laying. That’s a very good sign heading into winter.

But there’s still a little mystery here…

The queen cells we found a couple of weeks ago appear to have hatched. So we’re left with a few questions about exactly what happened in the Charly hive. Did they start preparing for a replacement queen and then change their minds? Did something happen with the queen cells? We’re not completely sure yet.

What we do know is that Charly is currently queen-right, she’s laying, and we’re very happy to see her. 👑

Now the goal is simple: keep the mites down, keep the bees healthy, and hopefully keep Charly right where she belongs—in her hive and not off starting her own real estate development somewhere else. 😂🐝

Winter prep is officially underway at Roca Ridge!

09/11/2026

It’s majestic 😍

09/10/2026

🐝 YOU ASKED. WE ANSWERED. — QUESTION #3

Another great question came up after our last post:

❓ How many frames are in a hive?

Well… that depends on the hive! 😂

Here at Roca Ridge Farm, we use 8-frame Langstroth hives. The Langstroth hive is the most common style used in the United States. It’s a vertical design, meaning we add boxes upward as the colony grows.

Our setup is what beekeepers call a double deep.

🐝 The bottom two boxes are our deep boxes. These contain larger frames and are primarily where the queen lays eggs and the colony raises its brood. Think of this as the bee nursery.

🍯 Above those, we add medium boxes called honey supers. These contain smaller frames and are primarily where the bees store their surplus honey for us to eventually harvest.

So how many frames?

Our two deep boxes each hold 8 frames, giving us 16 brood frames. Then we add 8-frame medium supers as the bees need additional honey-storage space.

Langstroth boxes generally come in 8-frame and 10-frame configurations.

So why did we choose 8?

Weight management. 😂

A full 8-frame deep can weigh around 60–70 pounds, while a full 10-frame deep can reach 80–90 pounds.

And when it comes to our medium honey supers, you’re looking at roughly 40–48 pounds for an 8-frame versus 50–60 pounds for a 10-frame.

That’s a 10–20 pound difference in one box—and we’re moving these things repeatedly during inspections and harvest.

Our backs aren’t getting any younger, and apparently the bees don’t care about our chiropractic bills. 🐝😂

So for us, the slightly smaller capacity of an 8-frame hive is a worthwhile trade-off for equipment that’s easier to handle.

Have another bee question? Keep them coming! 👇