Griesemer Beekeeping LLC

11/02/2026

🐛🍂 Woolly Bear Winter Predictions! What Do You Think? ❄️🌨️

Have you spotted any woolly bear caterpillars crawling around lately? These fuzzy little visitors are a sure sign that fall is here! 🍂🐛

According to folklore, woolly bears can supposedly predict the kind of winter we’ll have based on the colors of their fuzzy bands:

🟤 More brown in the middle? That supposedly means a milder winter ahead!

⚫ More black bands? The legend says we might be in for a colder, harsher winter!

🌨️ A wide black band at one end? Some traditions say that can predict a rough start or end to winter, depending on which end you look at!

But is there any truth to it? 🤔 Scientists say there’s no reliable evidence that woolly bear coloring predicts winter weather. Their colors can vary with age, species, and growing conditions. Still, it’s a fun fall tradition that gets everyone guessing!

🍂 With temperatures dropping and our growing season winding down, we’re curious…

🐛 What are the woolly bears predicting for us this winter?

Have you spotted one? Was it mostly brown or mostly black? Share your sightings and your winter predictions in the comments! 👇❄️

Are you predicting a mild winter, a snowy winter, or a good old-fashioned Pennsylvania winter? 🌨️🥶

🐛🍂

10/31/2026

10/30/2026

🐝🍯 FALL BEEKEEPER BASICS: Feeding the Bees for Winter

As the gardening season winds down and flowers become scarce, our honeybees are counting on the food they’ve stored throughout the year.

But what happens when their honey stores aren’t quite enough?

That’s when beekeepers may need to step in! 🐝

🍯 Why is fall feeding important?

Honey provides the energy honeybees need to survive the winter. If a colony doesn’t have enough stored food, it may struggle to make it through the cold months.

🐝 What do beekeepers feed their bees?

🍯 Sugar syrup: During suitable fall temperatures, supplemental sugar syrup can help colonies build up their winter food stores. Bees need warm enough conditions to take and process the syrup.

❄️ Fondant or dry sugar: When temperatures become too cold for liquid syrup, some beekeepers provide solid sugar-based feed as an emergency food source.

⚖️ Check those food stores! Beekeepers assess colony strength and available food to determine whether additional feeding is needed.

🌡️ Timing matters! Feeding too late can be ineffective because bees may not be able to process liquid syrup in cold weather.

Remember, supplemental feeding is not a replacement for good colony management. Our goal is to help each hive enter winter with adequate food stores and a healthy population.

🐝 Every hive is different, so checking your colonies is the best way to determine their needs.

🍂 Next in our series: How we prepare our hives for winter!

Healthy Bees ~ Healthy Tomorrow!

10/28/2026

🌶️🍂 Brrr! It’s Cold Outside, but the Peppers Keep Producing! 🌱🌶️

The temperatures are dropping, and fall is definitely in the air! 🥶🍂 But inside the high tunnel, our peppers don’t seem to mind one bit!

We harvested another big batch of peppers this weekend! 🌶️🧺 Just when we thought the growing season was winding down, these plants had another harvest waiting for us.

It’s always interesting to see what keeps growing as the seasons change. While we’re busy with fall cleanup and collecting seeds for next year, the high tunnel is still giving us a few surprises!

We’ll keep harvesting while we can and enjoy every last bit of this year’s growing season. 💚

🍂 The season may be winding down, but the high tunnel isn’t quite finished producing yet!

🌶️🌱

10/27/2026

💙🌱 Finally, Finally, FINALLY! The Blue Butterfly Pea Seed Harvest Begins! 🌱💙

We’ve been waiting patiently for those blue butterfly pea pods to dry, and the time has finally come! 🎉 The first pods are harvested, and we’re excited to begin collecting seeds from our blue butterfly pea (Clitoria ternatea) plants!

These plants have been quite the adventure this season. From starting seeds indoors because of those chilly spring nights to watching the vines climb all the way to the top of the high tunnel, flower beautifully, and develop seed pods, it’s been a fun project to follow. 💙🌿

Now we’re finally seeing the results of all that patience! And the best part? This is just the beginning—more seed pods are still to come! 🌱

Seed production takes time, and sometimes you just have to let nature do its thing. We’re excited to successfully collect these seeds!

🍂 The season may be winding down, but our seed harvest continues!

💙🌱

10/24/2026

Come visit us today!

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10/23/2026

🐝❄️ FALL BEEKEEPER BASICS: Do Honeybees Hibernate?

When the temperatures drop and the garden goes quiet, what happens to all those busy honeybees?

Do they hibernate? Not exactly! 🐝

❄️ Honeybees have a clever winter survival strategy.

Unlike many other insects, honeybees don’t simply sleep through the winter. Instead, they form a tight cluster inside the hive to keep warm.

🐝 Here’s how it works:

🌡️ They cluster together. The worker bees gather around the queen and vibrate their flight muscles to generate heat.

👑 They protect the queen. The colony’s survival depends on keeping the queen alive and maintaining the cluster.

🍯 They eat their stored honey. Honey provides the energy the bees need to generate heat and survive the cold months.

🔄 They keep moving! Bees gradually rotate positions within the cluster so different workers can move between warmer and cooler areas.

On warmer winter days, you might even see a few bees venturing outside for a cleansing flight!

🐝 Did you know? A healthy winter cluster can maintain a warm area around the queen even when outdoor temperatures are freezing!

That’s why strong colonies and adequate food stores are so important before winter arrives.

🍂 Next up in our Fall Beekeeper Basics series: Feeding the bees for winter!

Healthy Bees ~ Healthy Tomorrow!

We used an AI-generated image to help illustrate what a honeybee hive might look like during the winter months! While this image isn’t an actual photograph of our hives, it gives us a visual way to talk about how honeybees survive the cold.

10/21/2026

🍅🌱 That’s a Wrap on Tomato Seed Production! 🌱🍅

The last of our Big Momma tomato seeds are drying, which means we’re officially wrapping up our tomato seed production for the 2026 season! 🎉

From planting our seedlings in the spring to harvesting ripe tomatoes, fermenting the seeds, washing them, and finally laying them out to dry, it’s been a season-long project with plenty of steps along the way.

🍅 One more seed production project checked off the list! With the tomato seeds nearly ready, we’re one step closer to wrapping up our 2026 high tunnel season. Next up: finishing the remaining seed harvests and fall cleanup! 🍂

🍅🌱

10/19/2026

🍂🥬 One Last Harvest Before the Frost! 🌶️🥒

We squeezed in one more harvest before the frost arrived! 🥶🌱 We brought in a large harvest of kale, peppers, and our very last cucumber of the season.

With the temperatures dropping and frost finally here, I think this may be the end of our fresh harvests for the year. It’s always a little bittersweet to reach this point in the growing season! 🍂

But we’re not quite finished yet! There’s still fall cleanup to tackle and more seeds to harvest for our seed production projects. 🌱🫘 We’re making the most of these final days in the high tunnel as we wrap up the 2026 growing season.

From spring planting to the last harvest before frost, it’s been quite a season! Now we’re looking ahead to next year and all the new projects and possibilities waiting for us. 💚

🍂 The harvest may be ending, but the seeds of next season are already taking shape! 🌱

🍂🌱