Sweet Drippings Apiary

Sweet Drippings Apiary Nestled in southeast Cherokee county Georgia, we aim to bring raw honey to the local community.

Hive update: some changes in the apiary. First the three regular hives got balanced. The one on the left was large so...
08/16/2026

Hive update: some changes in the apiary. First the three regular hives got balanced. The one on the left was large so I took two brood frames and started a queen NUC. It also had two upper supers full of bees, so I took them and split them with the other two hives.
In the double hive one side looked fine, but the other appears to have gone queen-less. It had multiple frames of capped queen cells. So I left two cells in the original hive and used the other cells to start two more Queen NUCs. Also the three 5 frame NUCs are coming along nicely. I also moved three of NUCs (white) to a location a couple of miles away, which is near the Little river and has plenty of pasture land surrounding the location. They are looking good too. I have plans to move the other three NUCs to new location which has ample resources nearby.

Hive update: the regular hives all look good. Since we are in the nectar dearth I took the extra supers off the hives...
08/03/2026

Hive update: the regular hives all look good. Since we are in the nectar dearth I took the extra supers off the hives. One of the NUCs got robbed out and lost its queen so I combined it with another NUC. Next week I want get the three 2 frame NUCs started again. Just in case there is a need for queen late in the season.

Hey Y’all! A little hive update… this past weekend I started mite treatments in the NUC boxes. All nine of the NUCs ap...
07/30/2026

Hey Y’all! A little hive update… this past weekend I started mite treatments in the NUC boxes. All nine of the NUCs appear to have queens. I want to check for good brood patterns this weekend. Since we are in the nectar dearth in the regular hives brood production will slow until the fall blooms start.

The bees took out an intruding hornet 🐝!
07/20/2026

The bees took out an intruding hornet 🐝!

Hive update: well we are in the summer nectar dearth, so the NUC boxes are being feed sugar syrup. The 2 frame NUCs we...
07/19/2026

Hive update: well we are in the summer nectar dearth, so the NUC boxes are being feed sugar syrup. The 2 frame NUCs were upgraded to 5 frame NUCs, and 6 of the 9 NUCs have a queen/ brood. The regular hives all look good and I will do one more split from them to fill up the 2 frame NUCs again. They are also getting a preventative varroa mite treatments consisting of oxalic acid strips and adding dried stinging nettle leaves to the smoker to treat the hives. Keeping them healthy through the nectar dearth is important to getting them ready for winter. I also got see the girls in action taking out a hornet.

Hive update: I did a quick check on the hives today. The regular hives look good and healthy. The two frame queen NUC...
07/04/2026

Hive update: I did a quick check on the hives today. The regular hives look good and healthy. The two frame queen NUCs have formed queen cells, so nothing to do but wait. In the 5 frame NUCs, 4 have queens and 2 have formed queen cells. In one of the NUCs that has a queen, she is new so we will have to see if she is properly mated. The other 3 look to have a good brood pattern. Since we are entering the ‘nectar dearth’ I will have to begin feeding the new NUCs some sugar syrup to encourage them to draw out comb on the frames.

Hive update: the bees continue to bring in nectar and pollen, but there is definitely a drop in the nectar flow. They...
06/29/2026

Hive update: the bees continue to bring in nectar and pollen, but there is definitely a drop in the nectar flow. They have brought in enough for them to live on. Maybe there will be enough in the fall to harvest so honey. Meanwhile it is time to make splits. Using the Demaree brood boxes I made splits, but made sure the brood box for each hive had sufficient brood and resources. There are now 6, 5 frame NUC boxes and 3, 2 frame queen rearing NUCs.

Hive update: all hives have good brood /queens. I moved the two queen NUCs away from the the main hives and the two re...
06/19/2026

Hive update: all hives have good brood /queens. I moved the two queen NUCs away from the the main hives and the two regular NUCs are doing well. Both sides of the double hives have good brood. In the three regular hives the queens have moved into the upper hive bodies and begun to lay brood. Hopefully the weather pattern will continue to bring the beneficial rain. The wildflowers are blooming but the regular spring nectar flow was disrupted by the drought. We may still get a late summer/fall nectar flow, but most of that will be needed by the bees to store up to get through the winter. So for now the next thing is to make splits to make more colonies for next year.

Hive update…Well the bees continue to bring nectar, but there is not a lot of new comb built out or capped honey frames....
06/13/2026

Hive update…
Well the bees continue to bring nectar, but there is not a lot of new comb built out or capped honey frames. So I repositioned the honey supers to be on top and give the queen access to both hive brood boxes. This will be important for making summer splits. In the big double hive the left side had queen cells as well as early stage brood. So I took those frames and put them in queen NUC to try to get another queen. I pulled few frames of drawn comb from the top box to give them room. If there are eggs in a few days then we are still queen right. They were very defensive though. The drought killed the spring nectar flow, so hopefully we will see a normal fall flow, but is generally not strong and the bees use it to get ready for winter.

The bees are enjoying the dahlia flowers.
06/13/2026

The bees are enjoying the dahlia flowers.

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108 Laguna Springs Drive
Woodstock, GA
30188

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