Wild Summer Colors ...and Raspberries...
FLOWER SHOW ~ Part I:
Pears...and Nectarine...
Tomato...and Apples, some with bird damage already!
The First Honey...This is from the stronger hive, of the two I started in April. I inspected today, and saw both eggs, and brood. My stronger hive has nearly 5 full frames of POLLEN! Is that too much? I took about two frames of honey off the large brood box, which was jam packed with honey when I worked it two weeks ago.
Side note: they had, in the mean time, consumed or moved a portion of it. And had begun laying eggs in that box! This, even after I put a nearly empty super between the lower box, and the honey bound box. Go figure. Anyway, I had it in my head I was going to harvest some honey to open up that box, so I did. They are good little buzzers, and I hope they appreciate the extra room, and open honey cells. Yum!
I am using plastic foundation. There is many options in bee keeping and I am learning to regret some of those I ended up with. Regardless, for these frames, I used a
crush and strain technique. I scraped the capped honey off the foundation (leaving a 1/2 " or so all around the edge, though I did shave this down to frame level) and I am straining it now. The color is light, and the flavor has a lemon edge to it. It is tasty and energizing. There was nearly 1/2 a frame (photo below) where they had packed in
pollen below the honey. These girls love to get the pollen! I bottled all that, to consume as comb honey. It is a complete food compliments of the bees. It looks like we'll get about 10 pounds. The weaker hive is doing very well, and had a lot of brood and eggs. They'd drawn out both lower boxes about 80%, so I gave them a super...don't really expect them to do much with it, but I want them to have the room if they want it.
Not much else to report...Smoke has cleared (yea!) Summer is half done, and that is something to consider. xxoo Jj
Wild Summer Colors ...and Raspberries...
FLOWER SHOW ~ Part I:
Pears...and Nectarine...
Tomato...and Apples, some with bird damage already!
The First Honey...This is from the stronger hive, of the two I started in April. I inspected today, and saw both eggs, and brood. My stronger hive has nearly 5 full frames of POLLEN! Is that too much? I took about two frames of honey off the large brood box, which was jam packed with honey when I worked it two weeks ago. Side note: they had, in the mean time, consumed or moved a portion of it. And had begun laying eggs in that box! This, even after I put a nearly empty super between the lower box, and the honey bound box. Go figure. Anyway, I had it in my head I was going to harvest some honey to open up that box, so I did. They are good little buzzers, and I hope they appreciate the extra room, and open honey cells. Yum!
I am using plastic foundation. There is many options in bee keeping and I am learning to regret some of those I ended up with. Regardless, for these frames, I used a crush and strain technique. I scraped the capped honey off the foundation (leaving a 1/2 " or so all around the edge, though I did shave this down to frame level) and I am straining it now. The color is light, and the flavor has a lemon edge to it. It is tasty and energizing. There was nearly 1/2 a frame (photo below) where they had packed in pollen below the honey. These girls love to get the pollen! I bottled all that, to consume as comb honey. It is a complete food compliments of the bees. It looks like we'll get about 10 pounds. The weaker hive is doing very well, and had a lot of brood and eggs. They'd drawn out both lower boxes about 80%, so I gave them a super...don't really expect them to do much with it, but I want them to have the room if they want it.
Not much else to report...Smoke has cleared (yea!) Summer is half done, and that is something to consider. xxoo Jj
1 comment:
The Sunflower with the brownish petals at a diagonal is an amazing photo. It belongs hanging in a gallery or in someone's home.
I love it.
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