A couple pictures from our Harvest

Year In Review

This was a fun year for us in beekeeping.  It started off pretty exciting getting the new hives and then getting lucky and catching a swarm.  We were up to 6 hives at that point.  I had a crazy experience and was stung on my neck and went into shock.  I pretty much passed out and so the paramedics came and gave the neighborhood some excitement on a Saturday night.  That freaked us out a little bit and the thought of giving it up about broke my heart.  I decided to take a lot more precautions.  Things were going well until harvest time and I was stung through my gloves.  The great thing is I didn't have any reaction to it, so I don't think I am allergic to them.  I did learned you always need to be careful though. Honey bees are for the most part very gentle but if you don't take precautions they will get you.

We also learned this year that you can have very weak hives.  We had to take from the strong hives and give to the weaker ones in order to help them out.  It was amazing how a couple of frames of bees and brood could help the weak hive start booming.  We didn't get nearly as much honey as we had hoped, but enough to get us excited for next year.

After we had harvested we checked the hives and found that we didn't have a queen in my Dad's hive.  The hive was so large we tried to split it and get two new queens, but Fall is a very difficult time to get hives to accept new queens and they killed both of them.  We combined them back and introduced another one and they killed her as well.  What we didn't realize is that they had raised their own queen but as late in the year as it was I don't think she was mated very well.  Our numbers were decreasing rapidly so we tried to put them into a nuc box (mini hive) and the Queen left and we lost the hive.

Now we are down to 5 hives going into winter.  Some are stronger than others, but we are optimistic they will all make it through.  We will try to make splits and buy a few more hives.  My goal is to get us up to 15 hives next year and do it without braking the bank.  Should be a lot of fun.

For now there isn't much we can do.  I try to read up on stuff and learn new tricks.  I must say this is my least favorite time of year when it comes to beekeeping.  There isn't much you can do for them now, but just hope they are making it through the winter okay.