I checked my bees on August 26, 2019. Both hives looked strong, but had not replaced the honey I had taken out, so I put back my extracted frames in place of empty frames and left them alone. They both smelled like goldenrod, and there was certainly a lot of it blooming near the hives. This picture is of the white hive's front entrance. That hive has used the side entrance as its main entrance all season, so apparently decided to cut this entrance down to a smaller size. It may be hard to see in the picture, but they have propolized it so that there are smaller entrance holes for the bees. This opening was only four inches wide to start, and only about an inch high. They wanted it eve
I have harvested a total of seven deep frames from my two hives, but that is extremely conservative. I had to have enough to extract twice (three frames per load) for a group coming from the Hillside School in Otsego, our local school for the developmentally disabled. They divided into two groups, coming on two different days so we had smaller groups and they could all take a turn at the extractor. Now, all but one of these frames are empty and I will go in about a week and return them to the hive and collect some more honey, perhaps for the last time this season. Since this is my building year, I don't want to short them for the winter. I want to give them every chance to survive so I c
