buzzzzzzzzzz new adventure

[addy1]

You guys get aNY honey yet? When do you harvest?

We harvest in July if we have a good nectar flow. Our main nectar flow should be starting in a week or two, only lasts around 6 weeks. After we harvest, if we take all the honey we start feeding the bees to prepare them for winter. Also august is usually a starvation month for the bees. We do get some fall nectar, not much though.

We have not gotten honey yet................

 

[addy1]

Happy happy day!

We inspected 1.5 weeks ago, spotty brood pattern, cold windy weather. Worried the bees were hungry, not doing well etc.

We went into two of the hive today, checking the others tomorrow.
This is what we found...............12 frames of solid brood, i.e. queen a baby making machine!

Drones hatching. you can see their little heads coming out of the cells.

Last years queen

Tons of pollen coming in, bright orange and yellow Dandelions is one of them.

The above sure makes us happy, happy bees!

They are inhaling water from our bog, streams, ponds.

Dandelions get to live in our yard.

 

[Becky]

I find it fascinating looking at your photos, it must be such a rewarding hobby for you and your husband - despite all the hard work!

 

[tbendl]

I love that they made it though such a tough winter. Yay!!

 

[addy1]

This is what we like to see, black locust blooming such a sweet smell, one of the bees main nectar sources.

Tulip poplar now opening, the next main nectar flow , hives booming

The red circles are the current honey supers, i.e. where they are drawing comb, storing nectar that is being converted to honey. The other boxes are brood boxes. Two hives are too new to expect honey from them this year. Each honey super, once full of capped honey will weight 60 pounds.

We go into the hives weekly to access the brood nest, for crowding, if they get crowded they will swarm. So we open the brood nest if needed. We also monitor the honey supers, as they draw out 8 of the 10 frames we add another box.

 

[tbendl]

Wow they look like they are doing really well Addy.

 

[addy1]

Wow they look like they are doing really well Addy.

We are tickled.

This is their other major nectar source, tulip poplar, blooming strong right now, we have many huge trees within the 3 mile flying radius of the bees.

 

[michey1st]

So THAT's what those flowers look like up close! We have some towering tulip poplars in the forest behind our house -- I see them in bloom now, but they are so tall, I can't tell what the blooms look like. Lovely!!!

 

[addy1]

We have a small one right across from our front window, saw the blooms on it today. I was able to reach up and grab one. Now I want to see swarms of bees on it!

"This tree species is a major honey plant in the eastern United States, nectar is produced in the orange part of the flowers."

 

[tbendl]

The bloom on that flower is simply beautiful, I love the deep orange at the base.

 

[addy1]

The girls are doing great! They love the spiderwort I put into the bog right where they drink. In the bog it blooms all summer, out on land the flowers only open when it is moist.

 

[addy1]

The bees are bearding, they hang out on the hive / landing board to stay cool. It started to happen a lot when we hit the 90's with 104 heat index. The hive on the left is bearding the most, it also indicates it is a real healthy full of bees hive.
This is earlier the field bees are still coming back home. You can see the numbers hanging out increasing as it gets later.

We will be harvesting honey around july 4th, ended buying an extractor to make it easier. (now it will be xx more years before we break even........lol) With the one a friend has it would have taken us a week to spin the honey frames. All manual and my arm or my hubbies arm would never survive cranking the handle that much.

 

[Mmathis]

@addy1 I heard a sad story on our local radio this morning -- well, not too sad, since it's all part of the way Mother Nature is, but still..... [I tried to find a link to an article, but couldn't, so it was apparently just radio news-worthy].

NW Louisiana [like many parts of the region, though not as devastaing in terms of lives lost or property damage] has had a lot of flooding due to the flooding and cresting of the Red River here in the Shreveport/Bossier City area. We have a beekeeper here who produces [well, his bees do] and sells local honey -- it's the only kind we buy. Hummer & Son, if you want to Google them. Anyway, they announced this morning that the flooding has resulted in a major loss of their bees as their main hive area is located within the floodplain. He went into more info about how they'll recover, but Hubby was getting ready for work and turned the radio off!

So, asking for "bee-prayers" for NW Louisiana bee colonies!

 

[Nepen]

I saw a couple bees visiting my stream <3 I know they are bees because they are fuzzy on the body.

 

[addy1]

We are lucky to not have flooding here, at our house. Even without any flooding worries our bees are on the top of our hill. It is a lot warmer during the winter as the cold wet settles down in the back yard. You can really tell it when spring comes, trees bud out and bloom around a week sooner than the exact same tree, planted at the exact same time down in the lower field.

That is sad, this is when you harvest the honey that you have spent the entire year preparing for.

We should be pulling ours around the 4th. No clue yet on how or how much to sale it for, it is so sweet and mild tasting. We tried some when we broke apart the hive boxes the last time to do an inspection, none of the bite that some honey has, that after taste.