BeeBrief No. 1 – “Scandal, Science & a Bucket Bandit”
🧠 Buzzwell's Hive Mind Lab
“Let’s get to the sticky science, shall we?”
August and September mark the second secret swarm season, think of it as the bees’ dramatic encore before winter hits. The population starts shrinking, the brood nest contracts, and bees born this time of year are dubbed "winter bees,” basically, the overachievers who live longer, work smarter, and roll their compound eyes at their sunburnt summer sisters.
Meanwhile, Varroa mites are living their best lives. These freeloading bloodsuckers love a healthy hive, which is rude, honestly. If left unchecked, they throw house parties in the brood cells and refuse to leave.
Outside the hive? Bees are fanning the front porch like it's 1976 and someone broke the AC. It’s hot, it’s humid, and bee beards are in fashion.
Still blooming and fueling the chaos:
Milkweed, summersweet, sweetpepperbush (sugar-spice hybrids), buttonbush, jewelweed, alfalfa, clovers, mint, purple loosestrife, Joe-Pye weed, and sumac. Basically, it's a salad bar out there.
📽️ Watch it all in action at PutneyRidgeApiary.com, featuring awkward bee moments, real science, and inappropriate levels of enthusiasm from Buzzwell.
🏋️♂️ Buzzbee’s Hive Hype
“Buzzbee here—I lifted two pollen baskets before breakfast.”
Alright athletes, August is training camp for winter. We need those colonies bulked up with 70–90 lbs of honey and a nice protein-packed stash of bee bread. Skip leg day? You freeze.
Also in this month’s bee gym:
American Foulbrood: Rare but deadly. Keep an eye out. If you sniff something very wrong, call the Vermont Apiculturist.
Robbing Behavior: Bees get feisty when resources drop. Leave a hive open too long and it turns into an episode of Hive Wars: Robber Bees Edition.
Overwintering Woes: Despite the sunshine-and-rainbows narrative from the powers that bee, local keepers are seeing losses. Pesticides, rising costs, and colony collapse don’t care about press releases.
Buzzbee’s Advice: Lift heavy, cover your entrances, and don’t trust a wasp that makes eye contact.
🍯 The Honey Hotline
Real sweet. Real raw. Real local.
Still available: PutneyRidgeRawHoney.com 🍯
Find it at:
Putney Food Co-op
Putney Diner
Green Mountain Orchard
Brilliance (Brattleboro)
Cabot’s Candy (Provincetown, MA)
Online at PutneyRidgeRawHoney.com
If you're in our delivery zone, we’ll hand-deliver that sweet nectar straight to your door like a honey-fueled Uber with wings.
⚠️ We’re considering a late summer/early fall harvest, but only if there’s enough for humans. If not, the bees keep it. They're unionized now.
👕 Also in development: Buzz Bros merch.
T-Shirts
Tote Bags
Stickers that slap
Coming soon. Or sooner if Buzzbee stops flexing long enough to approve the designs.
😂 Scandal in the Hive
“Sources say drones were caught napping mid-shift…”
Buzzwell’s files just leaked. Hive drama is real.
Here’s the latest from the field:
🎥 New Videos Now Buzzing:
This Bee Needed Help... So They Sat On Her (Hive Mind Lab Ep. 1)
Bucket Bandit Bee: Caught in the Act (Hive Mind Lab with Buzzwell Ep. 2)
One Bee. One Wax Boulder. Zero Chill. (WaggleFit with Buzzbee Ep. 1)
Hive Smackdown: Yellow Jacket Tries It & Dies It (WaggleFit with Buzzbee Ep. 2)
Breaking Buzz: The Great Honey Heist of Today (with Beatrix Buzzwing)
Extraction Madness: Liquid Gold & Gloved Mayhem (Beatrix again. She’s everywhere.)
Watch ‘em at PutneyRidgeApiary.com or PutneyRidgeRawHoney.com (we’re fancy—we’ve got two URLs and zero chill).
🐍 Ask the Hive
Got burning questions like:
“Can bees survive on maple syrup?”
“Do queen bees have Tinder?”
“Why does Buzzloaf look like that?”
Submit your questions at our FAQ page and we’ll answer in the next issue, with a possible correct, probably biased, always entertaining response. Yes, we’ll ask permission. No, we won’t behave.
🐝 That’s all for this edition of BeeBrief
The only newsletter that’s stickier than its subject matter.
Remember: If you see a bee on your bucket, she’s not stealing—she’s conducting a field study. With her face.
– Buzzwell, Buzzbee, & Buzzloaf
“Until next time, keep your wings strong, your stingers sheathed, and your buzz louder than your neighbor’s leaf blower.”
– Buzzbee 🏋️♂️🐝💨
