Honey Harvest 2023
Having had a bumper year last year we weren’t expecting much from the bees this year. Our expectations weren’t helped by the fact that we lost our largest colony over the winter. I suspect they swarmed late in the year after we had harvested from them and got them ready for winter. With no queen and no chance of re-queening they died out over the winter. They may even have almost all left as there weren’t many dead bees come the Spring.
So, with only a single colony left I split them early in the season before they showed any signs of swarming in the hope that they would re-queen and both colonies would have a chance to build up to a decent size over the summer. It seemed to work as they were both happy, healthy, queen-right colonies. Better still, they were beginning to build up some honey reserves and we were able to harvest and extract the honey over the weekend.
There wasn’t loads. there never is here, but it was enough to keep us going and enough to sell a few jars to some friends and family.
Now to get the bees ready for winter and hope they don;t do anything silly this autumn!
