What a month it has been. So far we’ve just been conducting hive inspections and keeping the sugar water feeders full. It hasn’t been too stressful. Keeping track of time is probably the biggest challenge and I’m glad we have a little bee journal to document what we do and when because the “I won’t forget” method doesn’t always prove reliable for us.
Planning between baseball games, birthday celebrations, vacations, and weather has been a challenge. We’ve successfully left home for vacation and returned with no known issues for our bees. They didn’t even need a sitter! Now the temperatures are rising, the rain is holding off and I’ve been told the nectar flow is on. We have removed the feeders and put the first super on both hives. Fingers crossed all goes well. These supers will hold the extra honey for harvesting. We’ll be looking to harvest the honey in the supers come late July.
I thought we were going to use plastic foundation for the supers but my mentor (who is very knowledgeable and wonderful) wanted me to use wax foundation (just like we did in our brood boxes). It made for a scramble but the owners at Isabees were wonderful and were able to wire up the wax super foundation for me on short notice. So thankful. The beekeeping community continues to be tight and very helpful/friendly.
Today’s hive inspection had me observing not only larva, brood, and baby bees but also heavy frames of honey. It’s beautiful. This of course belongs to the bees but anything they continue to make in those supers we will gladly welcome. The comb construction and the color is just really neat to see first hand. This is not a picture I took but it gives you an idea of what it looks like on the frames.
The uncapped honey just glistens in the sun. So pretty. And it really is heavy. I hope we will be able to successfully extract this year so we can see and share that process.
I’ll also add…there are so many more bees since we installed the first eight frames from the nuc. I’m beginning to understand how two hives turn into thirty!!! But I cannot wrap my brain around the time it must take to manage multiple hives. I’ve also attempted to provide water for the bees. Nothing fancy, just a big bowl with a upside down plastic basket that the bees can land on so they don’t drown. I’ve placed it out in the apiary. I also have an electric water fountain on order that will hopefully help in the future but that will be closer to the house…we’ll be watching for bee visitors when that’s all set up.
My next blog should be on honey bee reproduction. It’s still something I need a better understanding of but I can see that it happens rather quickly. Our drone bee has noticed an increase in flying around the hives as well – he got intimidated the last time he mowed the lawn and steered clear instead of finishing up all the mowing near the hives. I didn’t have any great advice for him other than he’s welcomed to suit up to mow.
All in all, June 10th and we have honey supers in place. I hope the bees will continue to thrive and we’ll have honey to share in another month. Fingers crossed our high honey hopes aren’t crushed!!! Cheering on the bees!!!
-Worker Bee 2021
Howards' Hives and Honey 