Honey Harvest

It wasn't as much as I wanted - 5 full capped frames (although one of them was about double - so nearly 6 frames).  But it was MUCH, much more than last year.  It's over 30 pounds! That will last us a while!  I also added the NEW top feeder for winter feeding.  It hold a lot of sugar syrup.  I used the Bee-Gone to drive the bees off.  Even thought it didn't work as well as I thought it would (it wouldn't clear a full frame - had to use brush) it did seem to repulse the hangers-on so that after a while, it was clear and I took it in the house.  They have been pretty mild up until I started brushing droves of them off of 5 frames.  I had two get in my veil.  I dealt with them pretty quick - I'm not getting stung in the face again!  So - no stings and a lot of honey.  That's a good harvest for me.

This is the wrong way to do this - eh?

The bees were pretty crowded. I added a super and they started working on that but they were still crowded and they looked like they were honey bound. (I had a queen excluder on the super). After sampling the honey in the super and realizing they had pollinated the peach orchard a half mile away, I was determined NOT to give them that honey back! (It was unbelievably yummy!) So I decided to insert another hive body in between the 1st hive and the super. If this were not disruptive enough, I had a couple of frames stick to the honey super. They were ticked! The next morning, I looked very early and there were NO bees in the entrance. I hadn't seen it like that lately. I popped the case and saw them. Again - they were irritated and started emerging. It had dropped to 58 degrees and I guess they were cold AND they now had lots of room. That was Sunday. They're still there so I guess I made it. I was afraid they were going to swarm on me (like last year). they are sucking down the sugar water. I ran out yesterday and forgot to add more. They went exploring and found my wife's hummingbird feeder. They're all over it! Ha! I told her they'll keep her busy now. They drink a liter a day!

See what I mean?

This feeder works well - but it is fairly intrusive compared to the other style.