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What a year!

Having six colonies is a lot of work BUT it is paying off in a big way. We harvested our first honey on June 3rd from three colonies and we had a yield of 50kg. I was blown away with how much honey we got from a pretty dry spring. Then, we harvested a second and final time on June 30th from all six colonies and had a yield of 80kg. A very good honey year. I am sure I could harvest more but there are a few reasons why I will not.

First, I want to leave honey in the colonies that was stored in the brood chambers under the queen excluder. It wasn't the case in all the hives but in two colonies the bees stored a ton of honey in the second brood chamber. Maybe I gave them the brood chamber too late or the honey chamber too early or both, I don't know. In any case, I estimate around 25kgs of honey was "lost" because of it. The upside, I may not have to feed those bees winter food and also, what will I do with an extra 25kgs of honey?!

Second, I want to start hive hygiene and varroa treatments as soon as possible. I made a pledge to not lose bees because of poor mite treatments. I give myself enough time to treat the bees and also remove old frames with old wax from the hives. How I do both I will explain in a separate post.

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