Sunday, 2 May 2010

Taken by suprise


At our last inspection we were surprised by how full the super was. This is heady stuff - starting in June as we did last year, we had no honey and a super full of barely drawn out foundation at the end of the season. Now we are into new territory - a super I can hardly lift and frames dripping with the runny stuff!

Although none of the frames are sealed, we decided to add another super to try and keep ahead of the bees. Not sure if this is the right thing to do, but we can't bear the thought of missing any honey! The hive looks different to normal because I decided to clean the old hive and moved all of the frames into this second, new hive. At my next full inspection (tomorrow), I will swap back and leave the new hive for our future (fingers crossed) second colony.

I have a nasty feeling this is oil seed rape honey as we can see a few fields of rape from our windows. In which case, we will have to be finding out about borrowing an extractor asap - not to mention saving as many jars as possible.


1 comment:

  1. hehe - I'm in the same position. I started my first hive in June last year and another in July, getting 13 pounds of honey off the first and none of the second. However, this year my more prolific colony has already filled one super (capped) and is progressing with the next. It's wonderful. What's interesting is the other colony is still way behind.

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