August Field Day

Today was a great day for a field day. The weather was warm, but not overly hot. There was a nice breeze. First we checked the little swarm hive. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had begun to store honey in the top super. We looked below and they had filled pretty much the whole bottom box. The top super was fairly heavy. They might make it after all, we will see.

Next we checked the horizontal hive. It was out to halfway back. It looked good and happy and I didn't want to bother them. We left it alone, planning on collecting some honey next month. It has as much on it as I would like to leave for winter, so I don't want to collect until it has more.

Lastly we checked the vertical hive. They had not done anything with the top box. However, we looked below and they had filled the super below. We took out five fully capped frames and replaced them with mostly drawn comb. We put the empty super back on as well. Hopefully now that there is room in the box below it they will put some honey in it as well.

We brushed bees off the frames we collected and took them back to the garage for extraction. We extracted six frames. We bottled some honey and I explained Michigan labeling requirements. I demonstrated crush and strain as well. I also demonstrated cut comb honey. It was good to finally harvest and bottle some 2016 honey!