Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere!

Birdsfoot trefoil

June 22, 2012

Last update of June 2012. Although we had a lot of rain and some stormy evenings, the bees are still busy; gathering the precious nectar and pollen. In Chanhassen, our 4 hives are doing well. We added 2 supers (boxes that we can harvest in the fall) per hive 10 days or so, but they seem to ignore them at the moment. They are actually working for themselves, lots of eggs, brood, nectar, pollen and some honey. During the hot days, the bees stay outside clustered on the hive...nothing to worry about but a bit unnerving if seen for the first time.

One hive #3, was so populous that we decided to add a third hive body (large box) for the queen to lay her eggs. Today I saw that she had visited the third "story" of her colony and detected plenty of eggs.

3 out of 4 colonies in Chanhassen  were calm, and gentle. The honeybees were minding their own business when I was doing my inspection  and thus required very little smoke. I did a VERY thorough   inspection, looking at every frame...one by one! And noting how many frame of brood, eggs seen, pollen , nectar and honey. It took me 2 hours! Doing so once in a while  is important. I can detect if something is not right, and deciding what to do about it. The 4th. colony was feisty, and very busy...flying everywhere. At one point I was in a cloud of bees, and I had to give up. I did not want to upset them more than I needed. I looked at about 12-13 frames before closing up the colony. Still it gave me a good sense. All bees seem healthy, no mites that I could see. I will keep my finger crossed.

Monday, June 18 2012
I went to Shakopee, where we have 3 and 4 supers on each colony respectively! The last super is over my head! The bees looked good and healthy! The supers are getting some honey and each time a little bit heavier, that's good for us :)

Tomorrow, June 23 I will visit the Russian bees.

The nectar flow is on going...look at all the beautiful wildflowers along the highways....precious!