Honey Help

Denton came over today and we took off 7 supers.  Then we went back to his house and did the actual extracting.  He has all the equipment and a great set up to make a big job easier.  

He uses a leaf blower and blows the bees out of the supers -

prop the super in the chair and blow away.  He always blows the bees back toward the hive - I guess it's like a hurricane for those girls.

Then put a trash bag over the hive so there's no bees getting in the super again. 

It was an all day job and I never would have taken 7 supers without his help - we figured I got about 100-125 lbs of honey today. 

Hive #4

Hive #4 is missing a queen.  I knew something was wrong when I look at all the hives and this one has the least activity.  You kinda get a feel for what's happening and how each hive works when you can look at them several times a day - they're at the end of my garden so when I'm outside it's easy to see. 

So I opened the hive yesterday and sure enough, no sign of a queen and no brood.  But lots of open queen cells - maybe 6 or more.  I decided to leave well enough alone and hope they make their own queen.  I'll open the hive in about two weeks.  I can look at the front of the hive and see if they're bringing in pollen - that's a sure sign of a queen in the hive.  There's lots of bees in the hive and drones.  Again, don't know what happened to the queen. 

June Flowers