Summer 2004

That didn't turn out as planned. Now wich summer ever does...?

Strangely, this summer was quite good despite a lousy weather. Usually rain means less
honey, but somehow the bees managed to bring home a very nice crop. And, as usual,
I'm writing this well into winter when I got the time to fiddle with computer and pictures.

May 5, bees are getting strong and need more space. Time to reverse the brood nest
boxes and get the first honey super on.

Plenty of brood already. Can you spot the queen?

Bees working maple flowers.

A drone larvae with a varroa mite is investigated be a worker bee.

Dandelion flowers in abundance produce a nice crop of tasty honey.

Honey supers are filled up quickly.

Drone comb used to catch varroa mites in the spring. As you can see they are working
well and catching many mites.

Now let's see if there is any honey here yet....

Showing Jorge how to use the bee blower and clean out bees from the supers. We should
have been one more person but he never showed up so we had a hard summer.

This was how many of the sites looked this summer... I usually try to take off honey before
the hives get so high, but we never got around fast enough to do it. So some places just
got a box thrown on the top before we hurried on to the next yard. Taking those top boxes
down full of honey wasn't all that fun.

Even whife was helping out with blowing bees, as we were one man short.

End of season, I'm filling sugar syrup in the feeders.