We hadn't dug into our hives in quite a while, so Thursday we went out to check on the bees.  The last couple of times we checked, the bees had barely made any progress and hadn't yet started to build on their supers.  This time was different.

The recent flow of sourwood nectar jumpstarted three of the four hives.  Take a gander at the capped honey on the frame to the left below.  I had been worried that the bees didn't like the foundationless frames on the supers, but now the brood box frames are totally full on three hives, and two of those hives had started filling in the frames on the supers.

One hive, though, is lingering behind.  The picture to the right below is one of the edge frames from the brood box --- still barely built on.  I'm concerned that these girls might not survive the winter if they don't start working harder.  I'll have to do some research and see if there's any remedy.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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