I harvested honey from one of the hives. This hive made it through the winter, but is very aggressive. I was stung through the glove once, which is good outcome, considering how many times I’ve been stung. They were very angry about me stealing their hoard.

I wound up taking ten full frames that were mostly full. Some were packed on both sides. I left the partially filled frames for them and, hopefully, I can rob her again over the July 4th weekend.

The other hives are too young to have honey, yet. Their second deeps are not really full yet, so I can’t put on the honey supers. I have a super with the empty frames that I will put on a good hive next weekend.

Erica bottled 41 bears. The honey is a light amber color. A little darker than last year’s Spring honey. It has that Spring flowery delicate flavor. I am making Erica put two aside for my oatmeal in the morning. 20 bears are pre-ordered. As soon as I can get the labels printed up, I will put out the sign and announce on Facebook. This batch will be gone in a week.

I opened up all 8 of my hives. They are doing great.

The packages have all been installed about a month. They are packed with bees. In all cases they had 5 or more frames dense with bees and 7 or 8 full drawn frames. The nectar is flowing well here and none of the bees have been emptying the top feeders very fast, so I am satisfied that they are happy.

I pulled a couple of center frames on the packages and I saw eggs and brood. I put a second deep on all the package hives, except one. I don’t have enough deep boxes so I am making a temporary one out of plywood. I was tired last night and measured something wrong, so the first try did not fit the frames. For some reason I have about 15 unused deep frames and 20 unused mediums. I also have a bunch of deep wood frames that the mice got into and I need to replace the foundation. I have a pile of disassembled frames and some foundation, but the foundation was exposed to the heat. I may order some plastic foundation for the frames that need it.

I opened two hives that wintered and the split. I opened just the top and checked some frames. The top boxes each had 7 or 8 frames full of honey. I put a queen excluder on two of them and a medium super. I’ll have honey by Memorial day. The other hive had a medium super that I left on all winter. It was chock full of honey. I put another medium super on top of that.

I will pull the honey supers off on Memorial Day and spin the Honey. That should be about 100 pounds if things go well. I will check the new packages then and see if they need supers.

I will make the plywood deep this week and put it on the last hive. If it works I will make half a dozen medium honey supers. Plywood boxes with furring strip braces on the outside cost about $1.50 each as apposes to $20-$25 plus shipping for the nice boxes. I may buy a couple of deep boxes, but I can’t see buying medium supers. They aren’t going to be on over the winter and if they don’t hold much weight if I put them on top. If they only last a year or two they are well worth the effort to nail a few of them together – the bees don’t care.