Remember when you were kids (in the upper mid-west) and mom and dad bought Mel-o honey in the little squeezable plastic bears as a special treat to have on pancakes, cornbread, etc?
The company was owned by a friend of mine who got me started in bees, by the name of Roger Olson. Due to the accident, tearing apart hives, throwing around 70 pound supers of honey, and extracting, is was beyond me, so I called Roger up and asked him if he could take care of the hives for me.
With the move of the hives to the Ness farm, we had not been sure how it was all going to go, but the new hive (the single stack) has a good set of brood and with feeding should do fine this winter, and ready to make honey next year. The tall stack (where Roger is shown smoking the bees) has a nice set of honey, with one super chock-full, another with some nice comb honey (where we put in new wax so they have to build new combs and then you can just eat it with a spoon) and the third just getting started.
Roger cracking open the big hive.
It is loaded with bees and honey.
Smoking the flats before pulling them to take a look.
Scraping extra comb they had built between the boxes and filled with honey. Roger just put that on the ground in front of the hive for them to clean off and reset into an empty super.
There is a flat of solid capped honey.
Here is one from the upper brood box, full of honey and brood.
And another, much the same.
The bees all looked good, were docile, and should do well through the fall and winter.
This is the bees cleaning up the honey and comb Roger dropped in front of the hive from cleaning the inside of the hive.
So, when all is said and done, it should be 40 or 50 pounds of finished honey, which considering the kind of year we have had, is not a bad conclusion. Roger, from all of us, thank you.
Beautiful, healthy hive!
Thanks. I am glad it recovered nicely from the move, and glad the split took (which we were not sure would happen). You can find us on facebook as well under “four daughters farm” Tom
It is incredible to see how in the space of a month the hives have deeeolpvd totally different characters, and yes as Brian says one hive is vey feisty, and the other much more gentle but now without a queen. It is a temendous learning experience for all of us adults and young people from Global Generation. Each week Brians colourful stories illuminating the science of bees become a reality as we eagerly peer inside our beautiful cedar hives to record the amount of nectar, larvae, capped brood and honey. This week there was enough honey for a mini harvest and we also discovered about six queen cells on one of the frames. So it looks like there’s a battle ahead, as they work out which one will rule the hive.
Why are you buying bees? Last time I was in town you had engouh in your yard for me to get stung without importing any. Why, if it weren’t for me being such a heroic guy, someone else would have got stung as well. ( If you were wondering what I did that was so heroic, it involves yelling BEES!!!! and running towards the house with your arms waiving wildly over your head, the international sign for Lookout Bees! ) Luckily no one else was harmed, thanks to my swift thinking and immediate selfless action.The zombie kits are awesome, let me know when they are online and I will order a few for my Bro’s b-day gifts, that’s a perfect gift idea.Glad to hear the business is doing well and growing, I knew you guys had the right stuff to make it work. Best wishes to all you guys in UT.