NEWSLETTER #38 (English) from Urs & Izzy: A plentiful Honey season ahead!
- Izzy the busy bee....
- May 3
- 5 min read
April 2026 (Issue #38)
Dear honey lovers! It seems that Izzy overestimated her newly acquired skills, or she failed miserably to understand the IT backoffice. Ah, and she also forgot the password for the new website. what a disaster! So we are back to the old website. Does it matter? No, not really - we have a lot of good news for this season, keep on reading, you will be happy also!
One of our customers asked if the newsletter is written with AI. No! Promised, that all is 100% work of Izzy. Well, the translation correction is made with Google translate...because otherwise your eyes would bleed reading Izzy's german 'flexible grammar'.
One more clarification about the bimonthly newsletter whatsapps (or emails) that you receive. They are NOT sent automatically, but individually. To each one of you. Yet, if you don't want to receive them, just send an answer to the whatsapp saying "I don't want to receive it anymore", and I will just put a "No" in front of your name, so you will not receive it anymore. But... I am sure you will want to know when we have honey, no? :D
Are you enjoying the newsletter? Don't be shy, tell us at baerenhonig@gmx.ch , or WhatsApp us, if you prefer. We'd love to hear from you!
News from the Beehives
As you know, until late february, we cannot ascertain how many of the colonies survive overwintering. And this year, for the first time ever, we have not lost any colony! All of the fourteen were, not just alive, but very strong and happy, growing fast already in early March.
Our “bee godfather,” who is an old Swiss gentleman and very seasoned beekeeper, who looks after his bees on Stockentobelweg, hasn’t been so lucky—he lost 60% of his colonies this year. We’ve already given him “splits” from four of our strongest colonies and have also promised to give him any swarms we catch. And maybe you saw it in Izzy's whatsapp status... we captured the first eloping bees -- a 2.5 kilos massive swarm!
Where is my Honey...?
Your honey is on the making! The bees are really laborious this year, and we are seeing, day-by-day how their reserves increase. They can fill a honey frame (which weights about 2 kilos), in 3 days. But, guess what. They can also empty it...in 1 day! Yes, prior to swarming, they fill their bellies, so they have reserves to go around 'househunting' for 3 or 4 days!.
Making honey is laborious for the bees...and for us! Our ‘holidays’ are spent at the beehouse, harvesting the honey.
We will have again Spring Honey (=Blossom honey) in mid June and Forest Honey (Summer honey) in mid August.
Crossing fingers, also some honey-on-the-comb (if you want to have wild honey-on-the-comb, please PRE ORDER, as these are in VERY LIMITED quantities, and are sold in first-arrived-first-sold basis). In any case, we will send you via whatsapp, or email (or both if you are unlucky), a notice with "we have honey"
Facts & Figures
Probably this is the first time that you will hear this from me (and hopefully the last time). Please do not come near our beehouse this year. We have one 'africanized' colony.
Bees are peaceful animals, but not this one colony. T hey come to find you...when you are still 15 meters away from the hive!! That is NOT normal; our bees tolerate us handling them up-close with no problem.
When one colony considers that you are too close, and you are a threat, they warn you, up to three times! First, they 'bump' into you, like saying "hey, you, you are on our territory". If you do not retreat (slowly, please!), they will then, fly around you persistently. Yet, they will not sting you...yet. If you don't "cease and desist", then, they will fly with a very high pitch very close to your face, on a quick "z" pattern, after which they will sting. They don't want to sting you. Except if they have been africanized. Then, there is no warning; they launch the attack without any warning. We are stung every time we visit the colony this year; that's about 3 times per week - and we are profis! So please, this year, don't come to visit. We will find that Queen and replace her as soon as we can -- the bees have the character of her mother; she must be a real ***!.
Did you know that...?
Beekeepers make also what is called 'splits' on their colonies. When a colony of bees is very big, there is a very high risk that they will swarm, so the beekeeper loses half of the bees...and a lot of the honey with it. To try to avoid it, the beekeeper tries to 'mimic' nature, carefully separating the bees, the frames, the honey reserves and the brood in two different colonies.
The million dollar question is...where is the Queen bee? Without her, a colony would die quickly. Go find her among 60,000 bees! It is like going to the St. Jakob's park stadium, and, in the middle of a goal celebration, try to find one person.
Without the queen, the colony is not viable...unless they make another queen! So we need to make sure that both 'new' colonies have fresh eggs (1 - 3 days old), so the colony that does not house the queen, can make one. This is the process that we have followed to provide our bee-godfather, who lost most of his bees this year, with 'starter' colonies.
Swiss Bees
Sometimes one wonders, where does the tax money goes on research. Well, I am sure that there is a reason, even for the publication, sponsored by Agroscope Switzerland, on "the spatial patterns for early nectar storage in honeybee colonies". Come again? Well, it was a very, very complicated analytical study. And the conclusion was "we don't know".
Well, they didn't say that, they said "there are no patterns for the filling of the honey cells'. I totally disagree, surely there is a pattern -- bees have been doing it, literally, for thousands of years, so surely they have optimized the process. It is just that we have not found yet the factors for their reasoning and process, so we (humans) cannot find a reasoning after it.
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