BeeGnus

My one remaining hive continues to poop along, although I think the bees I see are just the last of the winter bees hanging out for food. I got into the top brood box a few weeks ago and it was full of honey, but very few bees. I couldn’t lift it (too heavy!) to see if there was anything like a nest in the lower box, although I doubt it. At least I’ll get some honey out of it to pay for new bees! SOOO discouraging. I guess they hit the road!

It’s raining buckets again, so I’ll check the next warm day when I have some heavy lifting help. I’ve ordered 3 nucs from Randy Oliver in Grass Valley that I’ll be picking up in April. I wish it was sooner! I miss seeing bees in the air.

We’ve had somewhere around 10″ of rain here in the last week and I’ve only seen one bee flying. I don’t blame them, I’ve been inside keeping warm, too! I sure hope Mama is warm in the one live hive I have left.

My last live hive was out and buzzing around yesterday. We had a slight break in the weather, and when it got up to 50 degrees, they were flying pretty actively. I’ve got my fingers crossed!

It started raining here big time last week, when it dumped almost 4 inches in 24 hours. I’ll be this was a surprise to the bees … it sure was to us. Today it’s sprinkling again, really early in the season for us. Yesterday, the bees were bringing in bright orange pollen, so I ‘m very curious what that could be in mid-October. Hopefully it’s nutritious! I was going to put another batch of pollen patties on, but with the weather change and their pollen harvesting still happening, I think I’ll leave them alone.

I bottled honey the first week in October, and have a few more jars to fill. One more super to spin, too. Very dark, fruity honey this year. It all came off the hives late, so it’s hard to tell what’s in it. My neighbors guess it’s figs or olives, since they have both in front of their hive. Mine is mixed in, so who knows? Hopefully people like strong honey like I do!

We put a bee escape on the first of 2 remaining supered hives yesterday. Neither will produce much honey, but it’s time to get the extra boxes hives off so that the bees will continue to store honey for themselves for the winter in the remaining two deep brood boxes. We also added pollen patties from Dadant, this year with Honeybee Healthy added to encourage the queen to lay more eggs for winter bees. I’m going to take some new photos today … stand by for bee pix!

Happily, Ann has been able to harvest 2 heavy supers from her hive on the coast of San Francisco Bay. We’ve haven’t been able to figure out why that hive in that particular location has been so successful, in that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of forage for them … it must be sea grass and other wild plants we don’t recognize as bee plants. She does have a few fruit trees in that yard, and the honey does seem a little fruitier this year. In any case, this is their good 3rd year without replacing a queen or much hive management other than flipping the deeps and feeding during derths. My basement, where the extractor lives, smells heavenly!