J&D Honey Bee Ranch

05/27/2026

I caught this video of a young queen today. Sometimes they just want to rest and be left alone. Notice she puts her head in a cell and just sits there. She was that way for over a minute. Also notice her attendants surrounding and taking care of her.

05/26/2026

Washboarding. Nobody really knows the reason. It could be cleaning, or if could be a social behavior. Today all my hives are doing it. The recent rain has washed all the nectar from the blooms so there isn't a need to fly. Maybe the bees just have a lot of energy to burn. 🤷

05/16/2026

Welcome to the hobby White House 😂🤣

White House gets an unexpected buzz as thousands of bees swarm the executive mansion's North Lawn

Thousands of bees swarmed the White House North Lawn Friday, weeks after Melania Trump announced the addition of two new bee colonies to the property.

04/30/2026

Some days don't go as planned. I caught a random swarm last night in a trap in my apiary. While I was working on that one this evening I noticed another small swarm hanging from the bottom of my largest hive. I grabbed that one and put in a box. Then as I was getting ready for dinner, I noticed another swarm from the same hive in a tree (see picture). At that point the evening became a race.

In the end I'm giving the two swarms to a fellow beekeeper, and I put the tiny swarm back in the big hive, as there were two queen cells and two swarms (leaving zero queens). Hopefully they will accept her since she was just in the hive a few hours before.

I thought I had prevented this hive from swarming by doing a split, which makes them think they already swarmed. But sometimes those don't work.

The life of a beekeeper...

04/23/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1N95BMCVZW/

01/10/2026

09/04/2025

Most beekeepers put a brick on top of their hive to keep the lid on (mainly to protect against raccoons). I always strap my hives and hive strands down like there will be a tornado. I started this practice while I was traveling full time.

Today just before the storms today I remembered I didn't strap them down last weekend when I inspected the hives. So I ran out just as it was starting and strapped them down.

I'll still not sure where this tree came from (seriously) but it moved the hive on the stand and also moved the stand about a foot.

Disaster averted. No bees harmed and a simple fix for the fence. I'll never leave them unstrapped again.

09/03/2025

Looks like the girls have found the Goldenrod!