11 Aug Honey still coming in!

After a rough couple of days as the remnants of Hurricane Bertha moved across Pembrokeshire and having spent yesterday windsurfing I wondered if it was “tools down” at the apiary too.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of activity this morning with clouds of bees still making tracks from the hives. I wanted to inspect the super of one of my more productive colonies which I had put on only last week. Within the super I had staggered 4 bare frames to see if the bees would build pure new comb without any wired foundation. If the experiment is successful, this will enable me to take some “cut comb” . Admittedly, it’s a little late in the season to try this, but we will see…

Firstly here is a picture taken this morning of a traditional comb from that super . With the picture taken into the light, it looks like lots of new, deep-gold honey is being deposited. Some of the honey that is ripe has already been capped off with clean white wax

Mid August Honey being laid down

And here are a couple of shots of one of my “bare” frames showing the beginnings of some fresh comb construction:

Fresh comb without foundation

close up showing bees hiding their honey

so it’s fingers crossed for a return to some calm warm weather at the end of the week…