"Favorite Hive" Update

-Posted by Isaac

A quick update on that favorite hive of mine... and the general honey-making of late.

When we left for Montana I was feeling a bit nervous. The early July rains were keeping the bees from foraging often enough.  The soybeans were starting to bloom, which usually constitutes a decent honey flow in our area but there wasn't much of anything in the supers. 

Upon our return it was a different story. The bees have been busy and the boxes are filling up. 

I put some pollen traps on our home bee yard hoping to collect some buckwheat pollen. (We've planted a lot of buckwheat this year, which I'll post about later.) To put the traps on you have to remove all the supers and brood boxes, so I basically did a thorough inspection of this yard. We have honey! Some of the hives were so caked full I added a super. You can see I added a deep to this "favorite hive." The golden Italians are hard workers in addition to being 'lookers'. Hard not to love.

I hope this honey flow keeps up. The recent cooler days and rains will put a damper on things but I've got a feeling the stronger hives will still add a few pounds as long as there is something out there blooming.

Wow!