David Avvisato

Swarm Season Back when my wife and I first started keeping bees, everything was fine and dandy until swarm season came along. Since we were only keeping bees for two years, our experience with swarms was not much at all. During the first year of keeping bees, we only had two hives and never noticed if they had […]

For readers who live in areas of the country with winters as harsh as those in Northeastern Pennsylvania, colony loss is expected in the spring. As we try to grow our apiary from year to year, winter losses are always a disappointing setback. Two years ago we decided to not just replace the hives lost over the winter, but to […]

With some spring-like weather finally arriving in Northeastern Pennsylvania over the Easter weekend, my wife and I were finally able to break down our hives and switch the big supers from top to bottom. As I mentioned in the last column, we had wrapped some of our hives in black shrink wrap, some in the […]

Hello and welcome to The Backyard Buzz! My name is David Avvisato and along with my wife Anita we have been keeping bees for the past seven years in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Actually, I don’t know if we are really keeping bees or just providing temporary housing as they seem to come and go as they like, but […]