Honey bees

   / Honey bees #202  
Swarm season has just begun and I'm already at my max. Its awesome that when my colonies swarm, they spend a day under the overhang, so if I want to keep them, I can just scoop them up
 
   / Honey bees #203  
Bees are doing good. I've got 9/10 queenright hives after the splits and 2 swarms. I'm going to check the one that i think does not have a queen mid week one more time. If i am still sure there is no queen I've got a good candidate to combine it with.


This queen was overwintered and was taken as a split earlier in the spring. Her daughter is doing about a well so far.

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   / Honey bees #204  
I'm adding frames tomorrow. The acre of white clover I seeded two years ago his filling in nicely, and blossoming this week. Lots of bees activity on it. I'm still a couple weeks from seeding my acre of buckwheat. All 8 colonies are doing well. Three years into no feeding or treating and we have lost one colony.
 
   / Honey bees #205  
Your spring must be starting much later than ours. We already have blackberries and honeysuckle in full bloom. I mowed down my clover this weekend.
 
   / Honey bees #206  
Your spring must be starting much later than ours. We already have blackberries and honeysuckle in full bloom. I mowed down my clover this weekend.
We are in zone 5B. So, probably. Our swarm season came a couple weeks early this year, probably due to the warm temps in April we had.
 
   / Honey bees #207  
Got 17 more extra deep frames prepped for the hives today.... Only 30 more to go for the season!
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   / Honey bees #208  
Our clover just started showing up last week. We had an early warm up them temps dropped, now they have warmed up and we have had about 4" of rain in the last 2 weeks. I had to feed all of my split's and swarms. I will be checking them tomorrow.
 
   / Honey bees #209  
Lets talk about honey extraction. I figure I have about 4-6 weeks left of good nectar flow. I already have 3 full supers and added 2 more last weekend. I'm hoping for 150-200 lbs of honey.

This is my 2nd year and I didn't harvest any honey last year except for some wonky comb that we crushed and strained. So I need to get basically everything required for honey extraction and bottling. I would like an electric, radial extractor. Aside from that I don't really know anything about brands or other considerations.

Anyone that has some good knowledge please share.
 
   / Honey bees #210  
Lets talk about honey extraction. I figure I have about 4-6 weeks left of good nectar flow. I already have 3 full supers and added 2 more last weekend. I'm hoping for 150-200 lbs of honey.

This is my 2nd year and I didn't harvest any honey last year except for some wonky comb that we crushed and strained. So I need to get basically everything required for honey extraction and bottling. I would like an electric, radial extractor. Aside from that I don't really know anything about brands or other considerations.

Anyone that has some good knowledge please share.
See if there's anyone with a setup that will rent it out. Here there's a hardware store owned by beekeepers and they rent out their "honey house" to hobbyists at a very reasonable rate.
 
 
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