Absconded

The Ambrosium has absconded. I'm not sure when that happened.  It's been a miserable couple of weeks around here.

After two weeks

I did hive inspections yesterday. Over all, another poor harvest is in the making.

Ambrosium: A bit of honey, none capped, distributed over both supers.

Josephium: Maybe 10 pounds, none capped, in the lower super. Maybe less. None at all on the upper super. I moved that one onto the Lucium.

Lucium: A full super, some of it capped. They are doing the best, so I rewarded them with a second super.

Salomium: They drained their syrup dry, so I put on another four pounds at $2.09 a bag.

The knotweed is still in bloom at the bottoms of the ravines, although the stuff on the ridges is basically done. The goldenrod is getting earnest, including in our yard.

Club Speaker

In the last two months, I've put 8 more pounds of sugar on the Salomium.

There has been a dearth with almost no pollen going into the hives.

Right now we have begun our knotweed bloom, and I expect our goldenrod bloom in about two weeks. I expect the goldenrod honey flow to end around October first.

Our club speaker, Tom McCormack, last Thursday said we should feed six weeks before the honey flow starts, March 1 through April 15, and July through August 15.

He recommended formic acid at the beginning of August, if I recall correctly.

Christmas Harvest

I finally got around to jarring the Christmas harvest we pulled off of the collapsed St Benedict colony on 25 December. I filled 14 half-pound queen line jars, or 7 pounds total. Tasted good! Too bad they are all dead.

The old hive formerly occupied by the benedictianae is now occupied by the St Lucy colony we captured in the spring. Ora pro nobis, Sancta Lucia! Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi!

More feed for the Salomium

I put on another 4 lbs. into the Salomium on Monday. They had drained the earlier one dry.

Still no pollen going into the Ambrosium. Seems like there is less activity out front there compared to the other hives.

On Monday, there had seemed to be a regular tornado in front; I thought they were going to swarm. Then the activity died down, and things went back to normal. I wonder if the ambrosianae finally did it.

It's been very dry here the past week or so. We've needed to water the garden as well as the bees.

Sting!

I popped the telescoping cover off of the Ambrosium today to see whether I could peer through the crown cover's hole and see whether there was any drawn comb on the upper super (the superior?) I couldn't see a thing because the there so many bees there. So I closed up and walked away. I didn't pry off the crown cover since I wasn't geared up, had no smoker, and had no hive tool. As I walked away an ambrosiana got me on the hand. It made a big dark bruise.

More Pollen

I spotted pollen going into the Salomium today. Wow. That queen must have arrived almost ready to lay.