Sunday, October 16, 2011

Final Flowers of Fall 2011

Final Flowers of Fall 2011 by D.Broberg
Final Flowers of Fall 2011, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

Red Dahlia

Final Flowers of Fall 2011

Final Flowers of Fall 2011 by D.Broberg
Final Flowers of Fall 2011, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

Pink Hollyhocks

Final Flowers of Fall 2011

Final Flowers of Fall 2011 by D.Broberg
Final Flowers of Fall 2011, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

Yellow/Red Dahlia

A perfect fall day in the garden

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Fall Inspection 2011

HoneyBees by D.Broberg
HoneyBees, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

A warm October day is ideal for a fall inspection. This image shows our new colony of Minnesota Hygienic bees. They are usually quite aggressive and today was no exception. They were crawling all over themselves on this frame, but we didn't see the queen.

They had a number of empty frames, so we ended up replacing them with five frames mostly filled with honey that we held back from our harvest. Their winter stores should be in good shape otherwise. We did see some brood and pollen, but not a lot.

The survivor colony was far more mellow today, not too bothered by our inspection. They had good stores with the top box almost 100% filled and capped with honey. Below had some honey along with the brood and pollen. We didn't need to add anything to that hive. Let's hope they survive another winter.