We visited our honey bees in Shakopee August 16, 2010. The purple Italian colony is still busy collecting nectar from the late blooms. We have for sure one super and a half of honey which we will extract during the first week of September. This is a little treasure to us, as normally the first year of starting colonies, the bees are busy working for themselves to establish a strong colony with pollen and honey for them to eat during the winter. We are happy that they made a surplus! The green Carniolan colony is smaller with only 2 large boxes. They are finishing their Apiguard medication this weekend. It is said that these bees will have a smaller population and thus a smaller reserve of honey to eat during the winter. In addition, they are known to be great survivors of winters... I guess we will have to see in the spring.
In Chanhassen, I have nothing to report this week. I am just hoping that by removing the queen excluder (screen), the bees will start drawing combs in the super, and collecting a little nectar. If not that's fine...it will have been a bonus for us! However, we are monitoring for signs of swarming as it can happen again.
Good news. We received our honey extractor! Ben put it together. We can't wait to use it!
No comments:
Post a Comment