new this year and no honey?

[enrico]

This is just another of my don't panic messages to newbees!
In your first year of bee keeping it is all about getting to know your bees! How to handle them and when not to even try! You may think that you had a full hive but wait until next year!
You will by now be hearing how loads of beekeepers are taking honey. You may even be one of the lucky ones! BUT if you have no honey please don't despair! It is your first year, you have built your bees up from practically nothing and they are in a new environment. Look forward to getting them through the winter and through the trauma of your second year of beekeeping before you worry too much about the amount of honey you are getting! Next year is worse. Your hive will look untidy and overpopulated, you will have swarms to cope with and once again you may wonder what it is all about. But it will arrive! One year you will suddenly get a flow on and there it will be 100lbs of honey off each hive!
Don't give it all away. There are good and bad years and always keep at least two years of honey in your cupboard.
It may all seem like a lot of effort for nothing this year but if nothing else try and take one frame out just for a taster!! It's been an odd year. Here's to next years honey flow!!!!

 

[beeatshellards]

wise words

 

[jimthebee]

I am loving the words of encouragement. This is my first year and so far love it. I have just been out in the garden and done my mesmerised by the bees stand in the garden in my slippers bit watching them flying in to the hive with pollen on their legs. Its from the Californian poppies on my allotment. Looking forward to trying to keep them alive over the winter. Lets see how i enjoy that !!!!!

 

[Davelin]

Well this is my first year and I must be lucky!. I started with 2 nucs in mid-may and both have now nearly two supers full. The first super on each nearly all sealed. There is lots of white clover and bramble around so they seem to be thriving on this. I expect it's only a matter of time before it all goes wrong!

 

[OXFORDBEE]

Well said Enrico ... Beekeeping is farming and you are not guaranteed anything!

But .... it is a lovely feeling when you get that bumper crop!

 

[Dilligaf]

First year!!!
Just coming up to my 3rd week and can't get in the hive to have a look because of rain.
As for honey, I just want then to spread from their 5 frames. I have said all along (Well, since ordering them then.) that I just want to get them strong enough to get them through this coming winter. I will hope for honey after that.

 

[Alabamaeee]

First year for me too.

I started in March, by mid May had 45 Lb of OSR honey from two hives. Then stupidly went on holiday and now have about two supers worth of granulated OSR

Once it's melted though I'll have some more honey to either feed back or use.

Now have three colonies as my experimental nuc failed, and one colony has swarmed and now has a new Q, but the other two which were an AS split also have new Q's and are happy.

It's a great, if somewhat stressful hobby at times.

Now working on my labels

 

[Ellem]

Another newbie here. Definitely been a year of steep learning curves for me & I'll be grateful to have a hive that goes through winter, having honey is a definite no-no for me (which I realised about a week after getting bees when the weather was so atrocious and a few weeks later when I realised I had a DLQ and it was probably too late to save the hive ), but I'm enjoying experiencing the confusion, frustration, joy & even the heart-break of having expectations dashed that seems to come with beekeeping. May they keep teaching me and astounding me for years to come

 

[busybee53]

Love your pep talks enrico.

I got my first honey this year and realise that some years are good and others not so, but can you please explain why to keep 2 years worth of honey in stock?

I had thought to keep some for myself and to give away/sell the rest. Hopefully to help finance purchase of a further hive and nuc box etc.

The give aways are for family and people who have/are helping with setting up an apiary etc and may also encourage them and their friends to buy.

 

[Torq]

When you go into your first winter with a single colony well fed with syrup and fondant...... and your first inspection of the new year finds a drone laying queen. Don't give up!!! That was me 3 months ago, since then I've bought another nuc, performed a split and picked up a swarm. I now have 3 laying queens, learned a lot and maybe, just maybe I might have a little bit of honey for myself this year. But if not, so what, it's not all about the honey.

 

[enrico]

Love your pep talks enrico.

I got my first honey this year and realise that some years are good and others not so, but can you please explain why to keep 2 years worth of honey in stock?

I had thought to keep some for myself and to give away/sell the rest. Hopefully to help finance purchase of a further hive and nuc box etc.

The give aways are for family and people who have/are helping with setting up an apiary etc and may also encourage them and their friends to buy.

Trust me you will get to be a honey geek. Everywhere you go you will start comparing honey's! But no one will come up to the taste of your own. And then you start using it in everything. I put away 52 lbs a year if I can. A jar a week. It goes on toast, in coffee, on roast lamb joints, in cooking, you name it! And then suddenly you get a bad year and your honey stocks run down to nothing, Buying honey in really rankles!! If only I had kept a back up supply!! So now I always make sure that I have a year extra in the cupboard, obviously if I think I am looking at a couple of good years on the trot then some of those stores can get given away or sold knowing that they WILL be replenished, but everyone will want your honey and if you give it to one person they will come back for more and tell their friends. Family alone would clear me out of my stocks in a week if I let them. The taste of REAL honey will take over your life! I had none last year because I moved house and now I have finished the last jar of my 'second year' stock. Luckily I have supers to remove this week. Phew!!!
That's why I keep two years worth...... Total greed!
E

 

[busybee53]

Thanks for the advice enrico. Must admit I've got 2 years supply of my homemade strawberry jam. I won't buy the shop stuff.

I'm not as green as I'm cabbage looking then because when I said I don't mind selling the honey I've got it's partly beause I will be extracting again later as I have some more supers ready, and also because I prefer creamed honey. So I can sell my runny honey and buy in creamed honey (from the same apiary but I don't have the experience or equipment to make it yet) for the same price.

Good this hobby isn't it? And I only started it because I think bees are fascinating.

 

[Chris58]

Hi, first year of trying to have our own bees - to have them would be good. So far captured one swarm - got it to hive and they disappeared the same day - obviously not got queen.
Second time got a nest, survived two weeks and they cleared off!
Still loving it though. Learnt to cut comb to frames and fix. Now need to really get some practice.
Here in France the 'Bee School' (Ecole Rucher) are teaching us their methods - different - they bang on the sides of a brood box to get the bees to move up to a second brood box! It works!

 

[Dishmop]

Talking to another forum member last week and they were saying that although this is thier second year with one of thier hives there seems to be hardly any honey stored as yet. The assumption is that the surrounding area is nearly all woodland and no aggriculture as such. Anbody else experience this or is it just one of those things that happen?

 

[Swarm]

Trust me you will get to be a honey geek. Everywhere you go you will start comparing honey's! But no one will come up to the taste of your own. And then you start using it in everything. I put away 52 lbs a year if I can. A jar a week. It goes on toast, in coffee, on roast lamb joints, in cooking, you name it! And then suddenly you get a bad year and your honey stocks run down to nothing, Buying honey in really rankles!! If only I had kept a back up supply!! So now I always make sure that I have a year extra in the cupboard, obviously if I think I am looking at a couple of good years on the trot then some of those stores can get given away or sold knowing that they WILL be replenished, but everyone will want your honey and if you give it to one person they will come back for more and tell their friends. Family alone would clear me out of my stocks in a week if I let them. The taste of REAL honey will take over your life! I had none last year because I moved house and now I have finished the last jar of my 'second year' stock. Luckily I have supers to remove this week. Phew!!!
That's why I keep two years worth...... Total greed!
E

Same here, a jar a week and that's mainly just me

 

[enrico]

Don't knock woodland. Tree flowers are some of the best around for making honey. Deciduous trees of course. farmers crops are not everything and in fact tree honey is some of the best around.
Must try the brood box knocking trick!!!
E

 

[RosieMc]

First year!!!
Just coming up to my 3rd week and can't get in the hive to have a look because of rain.
As for honey, I just want then to spread from their 5 frames. I have said all along (Well, since ordering them then.) that I just want to get them strong enough to get them through this coming winter. I will hope for honey after that.

Ditto - Preston up the road!

 

[debzbees]

Thanks! Really needed to hear that, though I have just put a super on after the advice of an experienced bee keeper, who I go the bees from...should I just leave it on over winter even if they don't fill it?

 

[Andre cardona]

i love them got 24 jars to day and my hives are doing well swarm on

 

[enrico]

If your brood is getting full then leave the super on. There is plenty of the summer left and autumn has flowers too. If you get a good flow from balsam or ivy they may well make good headway into the super. If not then feed them well in the autumn to give them plenty to feed on over winter. (Don't forget to remove the QE before winter.) There is still hope of honey so don't despair but the main thing for you is to get a good strong hive to get them though this winter.
E