I put a pool in our backyard... It was a very dry start to the summer, and the bees were very happy to hang out at the pool with us. My family was not so cool with "swimming with the bees". So, I packed up the two hives and drove an hour away to our feral apple orchard on the south shore of Lake Ontario. The bees now have a two acre pond to draw all the water they need. The fall season will last longer there because the lake will moderate temperatures for a while. They will also get a later start because during spring the temperatures will stay significantly cooler than it will be just a few miles inland. This will be an interesting new start.
I didn't have any fresh eggs to place in the trapout, so I contacted Jill at www. bloomfieldhoney .com/ . She was great and sold me a laying queen so I was able to get things all set up. Here is the video of what was done. I'm going to go over and remove the cone from the tree to allow the new established hive to rob-out the old hive in the tree. I assume there is a lot of honey left behind and I want this new hive to build up enough stores to make it through winter. With only one hive really established back at our apiary, we won't have much honey to harvest this year. Hopefully, if we continue to grow we will be able to split some hives in the future.
I have been really enjoying Craig's podcast about organic hive methods. A couple of things have been repeated enough times in just a few episodes to make me understand their importance. 1. I need to stop with the large cell foundation for reasons made very clear by Craig and his guests 2. I need to switch over to 8 frame mediums for all my hive boxes, again for various reasons. 3. I need to re-listen to the pod casts and write down a few things that will make me a better keeper. The things I am hearing help me to better understand the nature of bees. I always felt that if I had to keep the bees alive by artificial or pharmacological methods I would need to just get out of the hobby. It sounds like I can have success without introducing foreign materials into the hives - that's perfect... Link: http://somdbeekeeper.com
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