My Bee's Are Doing Great!!

Maryland Department of Agriculture Apiary Inspector and Master Beekeeper Dean Burroughs came and inspected my hives yesterday.
My 6 year old colony with a 1 year old queen is brimming with honey and Dean says they are doing great.

As I told you in an earlier story, my other colony which I had kept out at my Granddads in Stockton, had died last year. I didn't want to purchase another colony, I wanted to try to start a hive on my own so this is what I did.

I went into my old hive and looked in the brood boxes and found a frame that had two queen brood sacs attached to it. I took this frame which was also filled with dozens of worker bees and placed it in hive in which the former colony had died. I then took two more brood frames out of the old hive; knocked off the bee's and then placed those frames in the new hive as well.

My hope was that the worker bees would feed and take care of the queen sacs and hatch them, then also take care of the brood that I had transferred over from the other hive as well. And it worked!

This is totally amazing to me. From what I have been told this is very iffy and unreliable, but it worked for me and I am stoked!

Dean recommended I feed them immediately as since they are so young there are not yet enough workers to provide enough food for them all yet and the queen will lay more eggs if there is a consistent food source.

Honey robbing time is quickly approaching. Karole and I usually do it the week after 4th of July.
She has a spinner and I help her with her hives and she lets me spin my honey.

I'll keep you posted on how much honey I get.

For all of you who are interested in seeing the robbing and spinning process, email me and I'll be happy to make arrangements so you can come down and be a part. It is an all day event, that involves eating, laughing, maybe getting stung once or twice and at least one bottle of wine.
If your interested in coming let me know and I let you know whats on the menu and you can bring a side. It will be a blast.
With all of the honey we ingest on this day, I don't know what really gives us the buzz, the wine or the honey!