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

New Buckfast Queens Introduced - From RWeaver Apiaries

 I have had some great experiences with the Buckfast bee over the years.  I highly recommend folks give them a try as they are prolific producers and brood raisers.   These queens will be making the trip to California to work the almond pollination later this Fall.

Here is R Weavers Site - in case you are interested.  They are GREAT folks to work with!

http://rweaver.com/

Arrived Safely 6-28-19

Supering up on the Canola!

Amazing Day!

Today, I supered these hives as the flow is really coming on.  We are getting cool weather at times, with some showers.  Today is was warm and the bees were really working that canola.  Some hives are booming, some just puttering along.  I gave the 'boomers' extra supers to keep them busy.  In fact, just minutes after I put them on - they moved up into the supers and began working it.  Exciting to see how the honey comes out!

Moving the hives to the Canola!

This morning (3:30 am) - I moved the trailer from their 'early spring' yard in the apple orchards to the summer canola.  Just across the road is about 80 Acres of Sunflower.  Should be a great location!

Hives made it safely there!

Morning Glory on the Canola!

Hiving Breeder Nucs from Early May!

On May 18th, I setup these breeder nucs and the success rate was close to 80%.  Not bad but not as good as it was in California in early April.

Nice Frame

This colony was especially impressive and needed to be hived immediately.  I hived the rest at this location and one was even supered!  Great location and some pretty good queens!