Hive notes · Kronberg im Taunus
A beekeeping diary from four hives in the Taunus foothills above Frankfurt: inspections, forage, mite counts, and the winters that went wrong.
Standing in the Taunus foothills above FrankfurtGermanyKept since 2020
Each entry was written at the hives on a card under the roof, then typed up the same week with the numbers left exactly as they were guessed.
Entry 05Health
Counting what falls on a tray instead of guessing, the two windows that matter on this slope, and the year I treated three weeks too late.
Entry 04Wintering
Five colonies went into one winter and two came out. Isolation starvation, a colony queenless since October, and a roof I had propped up wrong.
Entry 03Swarming
Queen cells, the nine-day interval, a split that worked, and a cast that left over the hedge while I was standing in the wrong hive.
Entry 02Forage
Which plants actually feed these hives between February and October, where the gaps fall, and how a fortnight of rape changes an entire summer.
Entry 01Inspections
The first proper look inside after winter: brood pattern, stores, whether the queen is laying, and how few frames that actually takes.
Wintering
One row per winter since the first two hives. A filled cell is a colony that came through to the first pollen; an empty one is a colony I opened in February and took apart on a sheet of cardboard.
At the hive
I keep four hives on borrowed ground in the Taunus foothills and write down every inspection, including the ones that ended badly, so that next spring I am working from a record instead of a feeling.