Category Archives: Beeks Log

Beeks Log 6/14/12

Headed out to the hives in the 2pm heat of the day (note to self: don’t do this again.)  All hives were very active, TONS of traffic in / out and LOTS of brood being carried in – all good signs.

Honninfabrikken (next to pond) was absolutely jam-packed with bees coming in and out.  I removed the covers, did a quick check of honey box #2 – they’re building out the comb and beginning to store honey – then removed it and placed it on the hive next to it.

Eased a couple of center frames apart and found them packed with capped honey … probably 3-4 frames like that, already.  The rest of the frames in that hive are all built out and at least partially filled and capped.  I’m betting in two weeks they’ll be ready to pull.

The center hive is the Westgate swarm hive. No doubt their bottom broods are filled with eggs, pollen and honey, but they’re just building out the cells in their first honey box … and some of them are partially filled but uncapped.  Another month for them (remember, this was a small swarm so set expectations accordingly.

Far right hive has a single honey box on it and is doing reasonably well.  No frames are completely filled and capped, but they’re on their way.  Because they’re in the shade, I expect they won’t produce any substantial harvest honey until early August … @ that point I may just leave it on, add another super and harvest in late fall.

that’s it for now … the bees are doing well 🙂

Beek’s Log: 8/6/10

With all of the warm and good weather, there has been a great deal of activity in the hives lately, so I ambled out this afternoon to inspect and see what’s what.

Fuzzy has little honey in it’s honey box, but there are some frames drawn out in to comb and some small amounts of uncapped and capped honey.  The two broods are filled with honey / brood / pollen and appear to be doing well; I did note a few partial frames of capped honey in the upper brood but will let that remain through the fall harvest.

Freddie-Ray has *some* partially drawn out uncapped / capped frames in its honey super, and appears to have a fair store of capped honey in it’s upper brood. (I stayed out of the bottom brood in all hives today).  I likely won’t open FR until the fall harvest, either.

Now JimmyDale, well… that hive’s honey super has ~9 frames of beautifully capped, very light honey… ohhhh baby, come to daddy.  I’ll probably give them another week or two and then harvest those frames. I didn’t remove JD’s honey box to check on the brood supers, but I’m guessing they’re pretty full, too… I’ll check them when I harvest the honey box later this month.

I’ve begun using the dark honey that I harvested ~1 month ago and, boy, does it have a deep flavor… very different in flavor and texture / pourability than the light honey harvested just a month prior – just goes to show how the same bees / locale can produce such different honey.

That’s it for now – keep your eyes open for swarm activity… we’re beginning to head in that direction again.

Beek’s Log: 7/24/10

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last inspection and harvest, so with 80F weather and calm wind conditions, Saturday afternoon I went in to the hives to check things out.

All 3 appear to be active and healthy, with each hive full of fresh and capped brood + ample amounts of honey in the brood frames and fresh comb / fresh nectar / honey in the honey comb.  Fuzzy appears to have 5+ large brood frames full of capped honey… I may harvest a few of those over the next week or two; FreddieRay and JimmyDale each have full brood frames full of capped, though I’m not sure if I’ll harvest from them @ this point in time.

Beek’s Log: 6/21/10

Yesterday Steve and I removed and replaced 5 just-cleaned frames from Fuzzy’s medium honey super w/5 recently-harvested frames.  We did this so the bees would clean / rearrange the gooey frame / honey to their existing frames and I, in turn, could place the newly-cleaned frames in garage storage vs bagged and in the freezer for use @ a later time.)  Because I can’t lift right now, Steve placed the removed frames / super as a unit on top of Fuzzy (for the bees to final clean) and this morning (while it is still cool w/little bee activity) I placed the frames in their garage storage location.

Easy Beesy, huh?  (Hey, whaddyawant – this is a free site and I’m (clearly) not a writer 😉

While I was there, I also inspected Freddie-Ray and Jimmy Dale. Freddie had TONS of activity – lots of bees carrying in very large bags of pollen to feed the brood, so it looks like they’re doing well.  Next to zero honey stored in the honey super, so it’s likely they’re filling frames down inside the brood boxes that I cleaned ~2 months ago – everybody’s a winner: they / their queen got more room for brood and we got the honey.  Jimmy Dale is just now building up it’s population, so I don’t expect to see any honey from them this year… though one never knows.