Come and Get it

As the weather starts to cool off I started to feed my hives today. I went out early this morning to feed them. I think something is wrong with the family hive because I continue to see dead bees gathered at the entrance with a few larvae. I don't know what is going on but they need an intense formal inspection SOON.

I am going to try to not feed them too much because I have alread fed them 15 frames of honey that was not capped. Also we have had a VERY warm October so far. I still need to post our final honey harvest numbers and I will write after I inspect the family hive.

Fall Production and Season Finale

We have a had a very hot Fall this year and the bees continue to find nectar somewhere. I took another 10 full frames of honey that we will extract but I also took another 2 full supers that are full of honey but uncapped. I have never gone into a season ending with larger hives and so much unacpped honey.

I could extract it and feed it back to them but I have a friend that did this last year and it did not work out so well. I could also try feeding it back to them from the frame which would induce robbing and the hornets would find it so I really don't know what would be best. I think I will throw all of the uncapped honey into a nuc and then place it close to the hive. I will have to keep track of the dead bees because if the robbing is too intense then it will not be worth it.

I am slightly concerned about getting the hives ready for winter. I think winter is the most stressful time of the year for bee keepers. You want to do everything you can to ensure that they will make it through the winter.

I will keep things updated as far as the re-feeding and the robbing goes.