Preparing for the basswood nectar flow
Our new
package hasn't
done all that much, but they seem to have settled into their box
of partially-drawn comb, and perhaps have drawn a bit more.
By listening at the side of each box, I gather that the top box is
completely empty still, so the colony has plenty of room to spread
out. These guys are going through a quart of heavy
sugar water
every two to three days, but seem to be finding lots of wild food
as well. Since the workers are bringing home plenty of
pollen, I'm assuming the queen is laying and the hive will be
expanding soon.
Since I added
two empty boxes to the bottom of our oldest warre hive, taking a photo up
through the bottom only tells me so much. But I'm guessing
by the mass of bees I can see between the bottom box's bars (and
by listening at the side of each box) that the bees have drawn
comb in the next box up and are hard at work there. They're
also buzzing busily in the third box from the bottom, but the
fourth box up has gone much quieter, suggesting it's full of
capped honey.
Neither hive needs
another box yet, but I'm going to keep a close eye on them since
the basswood
buds look
nearly ready to open. This has been a stellar year for
nectar, and I suspect that with the help of the basswood, I'll be
getting an appreciable harvest from the older warre hive despite
their swarm.
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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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