It’s been a busy summer. We’re teetering on the edge of a drought, but did receive a long-awaited rain in mid-July that set the prairie abloom. We have one hive, Ole that is putting up honey like crazy, the others have struggled staying queen right. Enough words – let’s get to the pictures!
GREAT bee forage!
Was pleased to discover the Iowa Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship inspector has been on site this week. It’s a great service!
IDALS inspector noted mite numbers on the tops of the hives. We treat each fall, and will be ready to tackle the mites again later this year.
Nice brood frame, light-colored Carniolan queen.
Nice brood frame, Italian queen.
Use of the green frames continue. Here, drones develop, and drones produce more mites. Before the drones emerge we destroy the drone brood, thus, knock out the mites.
Today we got smart, brought a ladder. Here, six-foot tall husband opens up Ole, the big producer.
And finally, short wife had to pose by Ole too. We’ve been pulling off capped honey as fast as we can. A couple dozen frames are already in the basement awaiting harvest. On Ole now, we have six super boxes that are are close to being full and capped. If all our bees were producing like this, we’d be out of hardware.
Idiots Keeping Bees 