Archive for October, 2012

Sold out of Honey

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

All the Fall honey is sold. This year I have kept a few bottles for myself because last year I ran out around Christmas.

If we have a good Spring and most of the hives live through the Winter, we I will be able to harvest around the end of May or early June.

Inspected and Fed the Bees

Monday, October 8th, 2012

I opened the hives and there was not enough honey in the supers to harvest. The last time that I looked, they were coming along well, but September was not as good a month as I thought in spite of the heavy pollen counts.

For no good reason that I could see, one of the hives was totally dead and empty. Not even dead bees. This is frustrating.

I put Thymol strips in the hives. The back yard smells like thyme. Thymol is the essential oil found in the spice thyme. It kills the mites that kill bees, naturally, without pesticides. I also mixed up a batch of sugar water to feed the bees. I added some honey and a product – Honey Bee Healthy – to the sugar. It is spearmint and lemon grass and encourages the bees to take the sugar and store it. It also makes the hive smell nice and keeps the sugar water from fermenting. It is a natural way to help the bees.

A bee got inside my bee veil and teased me, pretending it was going to sting, but it never did. The bees were mostly calm, but one hive got upset when I started pulling the frames out to see how they were doing with honey. Lots of swarming bees adds a little tension to the inspection.

I was upset with the dead hive, also the hives are not doing as well as I expected. They seem light  with lots of empty frames. I will feed them again in a few weeks and I have to take out the thymol strips over Thanksgiving day weekend. Then I’ll take the feeders off and put some shims in place and then feed them bee candy, which is similar to bakers fondant.

I am seriously considering not buying new bees in the Spring to replace any hives that die. This is a very discouraging hobby and the bees are fragile. I have spend a few thousand dollars on bees and equipment and this has been the first year that I broke even on honey sales. I may have even made a small profit. I do not see this going anywhere. I have a full time job and the bees require more attention than I can find time for. I wanted to raise queens, but that is very nearly a full time job. Maybe when I am retired I will be able to work the bees better, but with this economy, I have to keep working as long as anyone will pay me.