Hotham Family Apiary

Yesterday, June 11 2017, we harvested 75 lbs (34 kg) of honey from three colonies. This is an excellent yield, considering I started 2017 without having any bees at all! There was a bit more honey in colonies 2 and 3 compared to colony 1. We even left a little bit more honey in the hive of colony one just to be sure that they will be fine in the current honey dearth. The next big phase is moving the nucs into new hives. Next Sunday I plan to treat the three nucs for varroa mites using a lactic acid solution. Each nuc colony should have a laying queen by that time. Once the treatment is done, I will wait one more week and then I can move them from the nuc box into regular hive bodies. After that, I will begin monitoring varroa mite populations and will react accordingly.

On Friday June, 2nd I took a look under the covers of my colonies to try to get a feel for how far along the honey production was. All three colonies have some completely capped honey while there is still a lot of uncapped honey as well. I took my refractometer along and measured some of the uncapped honey. All samples were under 19.5%. Basically, the honey is dry enough for harvest, as the capped honey probably has a lower water percentage. I decided to wait one more week (this coming weekend) before harvesting. Today is the day where my three nucs should have their queens hatching. 16 days have passed since I created the nucs. The queens will emerge, and after a few days they will venture out on their mating flights. Ten days from now, I will treat the nucs with lactic acid solution to kill off any mites that they may have. Another seven days after that, I will move them into a more permanent home. On a side note: I was pleased to discover that along the edge of a neighboring woo...

To my surprise, all three colonies have gathered a lot of nectar for honey production. There's a good chance I will harvest within the next ten days. This is an interesting prospect, as I wasn't too sure about colony #2 ever making their way to being a productive colony. One thing that helped in this was swarm prevention. By cutting out the drone frame and by also creating nucs, it is easier to manage the swarm behavior. Swarm behavior normally begins when the bees feel as if they are crowded. By constantly giving them more space to build, the swarm behavior is somewhat circumvented. No swarm ultimately means more honey. Last season I had harvested my first round of honey on May 22nd. This shows how much affect the weather has on nectar collection. This year we are harvesting a bit later, as the canola blossoms are starting to dry up. Timing is still important here, especially with honey that is largely consisted of canola nectar. Due to the higher fructose content in canol...