Amber Nectar

Jars bought, cleaned and stacked, preparation area ready.  Now to fill..

His nibs filling jars

Jar 1 

139 in total whooppeeeeee

Just a few more :)

Today's findings

Checked the girls today, marked 1 new queen, found a little virgin queen and remarked a queen from last year because her red dot was almost gone.

One of the nucs had no sign of the queen, no stores, literally about 20 capped brood but 8 queen cells!!!  so to save the colony we have ordered a new queen to put in the hive and will remove the queen cells at the same time.    Hopefully then the colony will grow.

First honey harvest 2014

Hot, humid and very sticky!

Today we took off the first harvest of honey.  From 4 hives 5.5 supers were ready.  This year we cleaned down, did a lot of preparation.  Arranging the garage, we had it kind of like a production line.  The cleaner and tidier the better because if the workers get a hint of that honey smell they will try their best to join us in the garage.  (previous years we've had 100's of bees sneak in)  this year just the odd one.  Success!!!

Uncapped, spun off, filtered then decanted into the large valved containers to rest until next weekend when we start to fill the jars.

Because we almost definitely have oil seed rape honey in there somewhere, we have sat one of the containers on a heated pad to make sure it doesn't set solid.

Weight taken off today = 117lbs Brilliant!!!!!!!