July is a generally a good time of year for bees. The weather is warm and the nectar is flowing. This is honey making season and our girls are up to the task! Inspections are shorter now, focused mainly on making sure the queen has room to lay. Last week, we removed two frames of fully capped honey from the brood box to free up some additional space for the queen to lay. With honey supers already on and at least one almost fully capped over, we took this opportunity to tryout the extractor, jarring approximately 17lbs of honey.
A mite check was also performed using the sugar roll method, which is less invasive to the bees than the traditional alcohol wash. Based on the results, no treatment was necessary at this time for either hive. We will be extracting the first super on August 5th and are expecting to jar close to 70lbs.