9/8/2005

My back still remembers our first weekend of extracting over the Memorial Day holiday.  Beautiful weather made things easier as did a small basswood flow this year; sometimes easier is not better.  We still have two more beeyards to visit and we're hoping for the best, but at this point it looks like we're going to have one of our smallest harvests ever. 

The honey we have extracted is excellent, though, and I always feel blessed when I fill the first jar with the new crop of honey.

Besides the small basswood flow, another factor in this year's crop has been the high bee mortality over the winter.  We're going to try medicating the hives with a new formic acid pad this fall to handle the mites resistant to the Apistan strips we've been using.  We used formic gel a few years ago with great results. Formic acid is a naturally occurring compound in honey and the treatments handle both types of mites, the larger Varroa and the smaller tracheal mites that plug the bees' airways.

As time permits during our off-season, I'll be updating the website.  Stay tuned.

Take care and remember,

Bee Sweet!

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