August 2011

8/26 Checked inside the Langstroth hive in the backyard ahead of the beedate tomorrow. Found a thriving hive with all combs drawn out again and much honey being processed. Removed 5 or 6 frames from this hive 11 days ago, so the bees have drawn out one frame every two days. The hive has been exceptionally noisy these last few days with the noise coming from the top boxes... exactly where the comb was being built. Will need to harvest more frames really soon. The chuck of broken comb that Jessica tasted had a strong fennel taste. All the fennel down in the creek area is still in bloom.

8/20 Removed almost half a bucket's worth of comb and honey from the cottage hive. Managed to remove one of the monster frames which was still mainly uncapped but no nectar seemed to splash out. Removed other combs that were also not totally capped over. Put all of these frames in a bucket to process separately in case they ferment. We were a little surprised that there wasn't more new comb and honey in the hive as the previous harvest was 12 days ago... but perhaps the hive house is doing better with all the local fennel.

8/15 Removed 5 or 6 medium frames from the hive in the backyard. This was second biggish harvest of the year and in the 11 days since the last harvest all the frames had been drawn out again. Only really intended to inspect the hive to see that everything was okay but found lots of bees on the inner cover and a jam-packed hive.. Filled half a bucket.

8/14 Harvested honey from the organic farm beehive. Filled a 5 gallon bucket with honey and comb. The combs were mostly straight and completely capped over. Bees were really feisty! Also managed to reduce the size of the hive by removing a medium box from the top.

8/8 5 gallons from the cottage hive

8/6 Inspected the Langstroth hive in the backyard (the package from the spring) and found lots of honey had been added. The top medium box had been mainly filled out after we moved up from of honey from the last inspection, two weeks previously. Decided to harvest some of the frames as the bees needed more space for the nectar flow that seems to be in full flow at the moment. Harvested 4 or 5 medium frames from the two top medium boxes. Removed two large chucks of comb honey and crushed the remaining comb and honey into a large 2 gallon bowl, which was filled almost to the brim. Will filter out the wax later.