Saturday, July 25, 2009

Bees!

This morning Ed Jr., John Howe and Chris checked on the hives. We have one that is struggling along and one that is already producing honey. We are nursing the weak one and will continue to feed them with sugar syrup. The other one (with honey) will get an added super and hope for more honey. The honey right now is just sugar syrup honey because the weather has been so wet and many flowers and weeds (goldenrod) have not had a chance to really bloom. The honey we have will be needed to keep the bees over winter. With a little luck the strong hive will bring our wildflower honey if the weather just cooperates. The other hive may go through summer and fall still being fed. As a last resort we may have to find a new queen. That will be tricky! The girls are out when possible and gathering pollen where they can find it!

By pulling out the frames we can check for eggs, pollen and honey. We also look for disease! So far everything looks good. We use the smoker filled with pine needles to calm the bees so that we can take out each of the frames to check them.

It is always amazing to see God’s creations and how beautiful they are with the sun shinning on them.













Chris

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