Inspection, July 23, 2011

Inspection, July 23, 2011, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

Let the nectar flow! We have honey from the new colony. Over the past two weeks they have filled this super and have it about 40% capped.


We added another super to give them room for August nectar. Looks like it could be another bounty year for honey.

There are now five honey supers on our two colonies. If the nectar flow continues in August, we could end up with more than 200 lbs of honey this year!

4th of July Honey

4th of July Honey , a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

The "old habits" are now fully broken and the bees are content with the bottom entrances again. Based on our inspection this morning, it looks like we will have about 50 to 60 lbs of spring honey this year! We could harvest it now and it would be that wonderful light amber that won the Blue Ribbon at the Boulder County fair a few years ago, but we will wait and harvest it together with the late summer honey around Labor day.

There are now two supers of capped honey on our 2010 colony and they are going strong. We added a third super to the hive today to give them more room for the late summer honey.

The new 2011 colony seems to have a strong brood chamber, but hasn't made much progress in storing the honey up top. They will do good to fill one super this year.