I have been having a great year for honey. I wintered 6 colonies. One died out, one alomost died out but has amazingly came back form the brink of death. I bought six nucs, made many splits, sold eight nucs, and now have a grand total of 22 colonies. Pretty good I think for a armature. I was not really expecting much honey this year, I just wanted to go into winter with my goal of twenty colonies. So on to my best honey maker.
I moved a five frame nuc to a new yard I acquired this year. I moved the nuc there in early June. I put it in a deep box, then added a medium then another, then I added a deep below the medium. I pulled two mediums full on honey two weekends ago and added another deep so there was room for all the bees. I put the mediums back on a couple days latter. I inspected this colony two days ago. They have one medium pretty full of honey already, and two deeps 80 percent capped honey. I went all the way down into bottom deep and was a bit scared I was queen less cause you could see that where all the brood was hatching they were backfilling with honey. I did not see any brood till I got to the center three frames. The queen is apparently slowing down cause its august.
So I have Three deeps and two medium boxes on this colony. I got 22 Quarts off of it already(two mediums I pulled), and two deeps full that I can take now and a medium about half full or better and thats not counting outside frames in bottom brood box if I wanted to get real greedy. So Im going to guess I have about 120 pounds in the two deeps. That would be roughly 200 pounds of honey from a colony that was a five frame nuc two months ago. This is no fish story. We have had lots of rain, nice warm weather, and these girls started on white clover and then have had alfalfa for over one month without end. I almost cant believe it myself.
Whats your bees gone bonkers story?
