Starting the Harvest 2019!

Hello!

Yesterday was the start of our 2019 harvest.  This year,  I have experimented with frame spacing and using simple starter strips to make at least 2 frames of cut comb honey per 8 frame box.

Plus, I used just 7 frames instead of 8 to get them to make the frames 'fatter' to ease decapping and spinning.

This is a 'starter strip' frame

Beautifully translucent 

Nice 'thick' honey frame - ready for extracting!

After I transported this portion to our honey house, a wicked thunderstorm came up.  I was the most severe storm that I've traveled in living here in the Inland Northwest.  The wind gusts nearly blew me off the road!  I thought the rain was going to come through the windshield.  Luckily, I arrived home safe and watched the storm rage from the safety of my home!

Canola field cause an 'explosion' of productivity!

I placed our "Pollination wagon" on the Canola just under 2 weeks ago and they have filled up the honey supers!  I have to place more supers on this soon!  Amazing !

Powder Sugar with ProDFM pro-biotic treatments applied

Last Spring, I tried using this treatment on my breeder nuclei.  It worked great and I have heard good things from other beekeepers as well on it. 

So, I decided to treat again with my new nucs and singles to give them a boost.  Plus, the powder sugar is applied with the billows.  This puffs the sugar into a cloud and covers the bees.  This encourages cleaning behavior and helps with the mites.  I use varroa screens - so this method seems to work pretty well. 

ProDFM with Powder Sugar applied