Is this a later honey season for some?

sandhya · June 13, 2007, 12:16:36 AM

Mine is later as compaired to years past...is this what everyone is seeing?

doak · June 13, 2007, 01:15:35 AM

As for my main early season, mine came better and about 10 to 15 days sooner this year.
I think it all depends on where you are, how early of a spring you had, what kind of rain.
I get all my main crop from the last week in March to mid June.
I had some drawn comb supers to start out with this year and a better than normal early flow.
I will take all I am going to take by the first of July.
Of course, I'm down here in Georgia. I know the futher north, the later the flow.
doak

Michael Bush · June 13, 2007, 07:58:30 AM

There were a lot of honey plants blooming and nothing coming in here.

annette · June 13, 2007, 03:01:08 PM

This is off the topic but Sandhya, you appear to be a bellydancer also. I have a friend who danced at that festival in 2006. Wow, a beekeeper and bellydancer!!!

Take care
Annette

Brian D. Bray · June 14, 2007, 09:29:38 PM

With a combination like that maybe she can immitate the bee dances. A whole lot of shaken goin' on!

Kathyp · June 14, 2007, 09:42:03 PM

i have had stuff blooming like crazy. bees are working like crazy. i have NO honey even around the brood. it's driving me nuts. they are putting in 0 stores.

annette · June 15, 2007, 12:42:45 PM

Quote from: kathyp on June 14, 2007, 09:42:03 PM
i have had stuff blooming like crazy. bees are working like crazy. i have NO honey even around the brood. it's driving me nuts. they are putting in 0 stores.

Why is that??? Perhaps no nectar in the flowers??? Are they just peeking around those flowers???

Kathyp · June 15, 2007, 12:53:47 PM

they are bringing stuff in. i guess they are using it for brood rearing, but they are not building up as quickly as last year. our weather has not been great. it hasn't warmed up. it's raining again today. i'm sure that has a lot to do with it.

ZuniBee · June 15, 2007, 05:42:30 PM

I guess I don't feel as bad now that others are in the same boat. My hives started great and built fast but they have not stored much honey at all. I added the honey supers when the frames were 80% drawn and so far, after two weeks they have not done anything in the supers. Flowers are just starting to bloom here so maybe this next week will start something. I didn't expect much honey this first year but thought I would get something!

LET-CA · June 15, 2007, 05:57:29 PM

My bees are pretty much just holding their own right now. Lots of activity with bees going in and out, but the single super on top of each of my four double-deep hives are for the most part just sitting. Very little progress in the past two weeks. I've been wetting down the yard real well each day to make sure they have enough water available (we're in the 100's) and the populations are big, just very little coming in. I'm wondering if I should give them some pollen patties too?

sandhya · June 15, 2007, 06:07:55 PM

Quote from: annette on June 13, 2007, 03:01:08 PM
This is off the topic but Sandhya, you appear to be a bellydancer also. I have a friend who danced at that festival in 2006. Wow, a beekeeper and bellydancer!!!

Take care
Annette

yea, that was the Rakkasah festival in Richmond in March...
what is your friends dance name and what day did she dance, The pictures are on the web of all the dancers they have pics of...sorry to have highjacked this topic.... :-X

annette · June 15, 2007, 07:09:10 PM

check your messages. now we do not have to hijack this topic

annette

qa33010 · June 20, 2007, 08:57:00 PM

I was told this is about a month early for around here.

BBHJ · June 21, 2007, 08:59:48 AM

I think the main flow where I'm at is about to come around in a week or so. One of my hives have been filling up supers good IMO for the last 1 1/2 months. I have the 4th on the one hive & it should be full in a couple of days. I've been using a queen excluder on it also since adding the 2-4th supers. The hive has one deep brood box & its 10 frames. IDK but that seems pretty good mainly considering the VERY dry wheather we've had but also because I'm using 10 frame equip. & only 1 brood chamber. The supers are shallows though so this amount of honey could be "just o.k. or "normall" I dont know. Our other 5 hives in a different location didnt start making any surplus until last week. Only 2 of those 5 had their 1st supers full that have been on for a long time now and we added a second one. One hive still hadn't done anything in its 1st super!

BMAC · June 21, 2007, 09:28:16 AM

In Western MO there are a ton of honey plants blooming. Like Michael was saying, its blooming but nothing coming in yet. Maybe its just a building year here and we will see no honey. I will have to order some queens here soon if the flow doesn't start and make a bunch of splits for next Spring.

JP · June 21, 2007, 09:45:04 AM

I was expecting more from my bees this year but its not their fault. It has been too dry here. Its been raining a lot lately, but we really needed it when the flowers were blooming, even before that. The flowers were not juicy enough. I will get some honey but not what I was hoping for. Perhaps a fall flow.

KONASDAD · June 21, 2007, 11:54:26 AM

In my limited experience, I think were having a great spring here in the northeast-mid atlantic areas. Rain had been frequent enough, and usually at nite as well. One hive has drawn and filled one deep, three mediums from scratch, and still 3 plus weeks of flow if years past are any indication. The other hive is up to 4 mediums, started w/ one drawn med. box.

Dane Bramage · June 21, 2007, 03:03:37 PM

I have no previous seasons to compare, but the flow is definitely on here & now. I have 10 new hives this year and the 4 nucs I started first have filled 2 deep, 10 frame brood chambers and are on to the supers. One hive is on it's 2nd super while the first one is being capped. The other 6 (one early package, 5 late nucs) are well on their way of filling both deep brood chambers. When I inspected the various brood chamber frames I found many full of capped honey - they're surprisingly heavy (even though I read what to expect)!
I'll take some pics and start a new thread perhaps since a first year experience isn't so helpful or relevant to thread topic.

tom · June 22, 2007, 01:08:40 AM

Howdy all it's been dry here but my two big hive are doing well my first hive is half way from filling it up and the top super is full and capped over my second hive has one super capped and half way on the second but they are not filling it up like my first hive.And we had rain day before yesterday and now i can smell sourwood in the air and when i walk on my deck thats all you can smell i do see some blooming and my girls are really busy in the mornings and late evenings but i am going to put a third super on my first hive tomarrow and see whats going to happen i would love to get some sourwood.

Tom