Pop's Bees, LLC

Pop's Bees, LLC Pure Raw Honey for sale. Nectar gathered by bees located in the Williamstown area. Twice strained.

Pulled 9 frames of fully capped honey today all from this spring. Unfortunately only one hive and I didn't take any from...
05/26/2026

Pulled 9 frames of fully capped honey today all from this spring. Unfortunately only one hive and I didn't take any from the brood boxes since I gave them so much sugar syrup last year. I don't want to contaminate pure raw honey with sugar syrup.

I also took advantage of the cooler temperature to apply a full treatment (2 packs) of Formic Pro to treat in case there are any Varroa mites. You can always count on there being some mites. I'm just treating to keep the count low. This gets put between the 2 brood boxes for 14 days.

When the hive population is high and so is the heat and humidity many bees will move outside to create space for airflow...
05/20/2026

When the hive population is high and so is the heat and humidity many bees will move outside to create space for airflow inside. At night when all the foragers have returned there could be many more. When they cluster on each other and hang below the entrance it is called Bearding.

Today's hive inspection looks promising. Population is very strong\large. Photo of open hive shows the overflow of bees ...
05/12/2026

Today's hive inspection looks promising. Population is very strong\large. Photo of open hive shows the overflow of bees from the lower brood box while I was inspecting. The upper brood box was similar and the honey super (upper most box where the Queen doesn't have access) had lots of bees processing nectar into honey and was pretty heavy. I would estimate that this hive has 60,000 or more bees.

Another good sign was that there were no queen cups\cells. This means they are happy with their current queen, not showing signs of stress from mites or small hive beetles and aren't looking to swarm.

My goal in the next couple of weeks is to treat for varroa mites before it gets too hot with a treatment safe for when there's honey in the super.

One of the girls getting a drink from a wet rock next to the waterfall of my pond.
04/27/2026

One of the girls getting a drink from a wet rock next to the waterfall of my pond.

Glistening Nectar
04/18/2026

Glistening Nectar

04/18/2026

A photo and video from today's inspection.

Glistening nectar in the photo.

The video shows a forager that returned and is doing the Waggle Dance to share the direction of the nectar and pollen source related to the sun (vertical), the distance based on how far they do the dance in that direction and how abundant it is based on how much waggle it is doing. The dance is usually done in the hive in total darkness.

https://share.google/aimode/qQseL91OMt2gZfVoD

Orientation Flights - A queen bee lays as many as 1,000 eggs a day. Bees emerge from the cell every 21 days. When bees ...
04/12/2026

Orientation Flights - A queen bee lays as many as 1,000 eggs a day. Bees emerge from the cell every 21 days. When bees leave the hive for the first time they do an orientation flight which you see many bees doing in this photo. They exit the hive and hover facing the hive to see what it looks like, what is around it and the location of sun so they can find their way back.

Honey bee Spring progress. The first photo shows good typical placement of 1 capped worker (female) brood, 2 uncapped pu...
03/26/2026

Honey bee Spring progress.
The first photo shows good typical placement of 1 capped worker (female) brood, 2 uncapped pupae, 3 pollen, 4 nectar. Everything is placed so that the nurse bees have access for feeding the pupae.

The photo with the circled area points out the larger capped drone (male) brood compared to the smaller capped female brood on the left.

Once the drones start to emerge from their cells, I'll need to try to avoid swarming by making sure there's enough space for the colony to stay in this hive. It will also be a signal to me that if there's plenty of brood and resources (pollen & nectar) that I might be able to split this hive into a second hive and let them create a Queen for the new hive. Drones from other hives flying in the area would be needed to mate with a new Queen. Drones from a new Queen's hive don't mate with her in order to prevent inbreeding.

Next step in Spring beekeeping is to setup a baited Nuc (nucleus) hive. This is a small hive with just 4 frames of drawn...
03/11/2026

Next step in Spring beekeeping is to setup a baited Nuc (nucleus) hive. This is a small hive with just 4 frames of drawn out comb and some essential lemongrass oil that attracts bees.

My hope is to lure a wild honey bee swarm or a recent swarm from another local beekeeper that didn't keep their bees from swarming. If caught, once they settle in I could then transfer them to my second empty hive.

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Williamstown, NJ

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