this season's yield

[Monsieur Abeille]

Started with 2 hives in spring, rising to 3 during summer. Several swarms in and out (not overly diligent with my swarm control).

About 80 lbs from OSR and 50lbs from the rest of the year which is average to good for my bees.

 

[psafloyd]

102lb so far from six hives, with a couple of supers nearly ready for extraction at last inspection. It has been a strange season with hives varying from week to week, one week looking promising and the next really struggling. Flow has only come in since the beginning of July. Before that they just kept eating everything.

I've had about 80lbs from a couple of hives and have four supers (one on two and two on one) at my main apiary and at least two or three to come (fingers crossed) at my other one.

However, I went away late this year (end of June, early august) when they normally have stopped swarming and are stuffing nectar away.But this year, I got back and there had clearly been a gap as they were down in weight, but evenly across the board, with strong colonies, so not down to robbing.

 

[Firefly]

3 colonies at the start became 4 colonies at the end, just like last year

Last year: 140lb (of which 50 was OSR)
This year: 70lb (of which 20 was OSR, despite vast areas of crop within yards of the apiary; most of what they brought in they subsequently ate without ever sealing the cells)

Like others - a lot of stop/start and a lot of nectar that was here today gone tomorrow

 

[hallshoney]

Floral honey is about 50 % of last year don't know about heather yet they still bringing it in though it has slowed this week.

 

[Jed D]

Well our spring harvest was good , very little OSR in the mix..
Lots of real hedgerow blossom ,mixed with our overwintered Borage.. Nice light Honey.. 350lbs in buckets...

This was followed by around 90lbs of Lime, ish Bee blend.
( this was stolen from our bees ( by me ) as they started capping it ' but before moonson season kicked in..

And at this very moment our second staggered crop of Borage is just starting to flower !!!!
Currently 16 degress & it's been raining for 2 days.... AARRGGGHHHH

I thought I was being clever by staggering our Borage patch.





On the postive side !!!!
There are wild hops growing in the hedges around the Hives , so I feel a christmas brew coming on...
Honey Ale...
P.S. Sorry for mentioning the word....

 

[pargyle]

:
P.S. Sorry for mentioning the word....

Somebody had to be the first ...

But there are only 115 days left !

http://www.xmasclock.com/

 

[masterBK]

1370 lbs from 23 colonies (thats 40% down on last year) so an average sort of year . Limes didn't yield this year.

 

[Thymallus]

Limes didn't yield this year.

Talking of non yielders the Himalayan Balsam round me is giving out nothing. My bees usually work it for approx 6 weeks. They have had one week on it this year and now stopped.....unless of course the rain is washing their thorax's clean of the pollen.
So scrub any balsam honey for this year.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Mine are on it at a frenzy. Lots of bees flying out with white spots...they can't get in or out fast enough.
Sunshine and showers and still warm....ideal weather.

 

[enrico]

God, I am so tempted to throw seeds in my local river! Think I may get rumbled tho'!

 

[pargyle]

Some of mine have clearly found some Balsam, classic white pyjamas .. but I've no idea where it is ... not seen any around here at all.

 

[Thymallus]

Mine are on it at a frenzy. Lots of bees flying out with white spots...they can't get in or out fast enough.
Sunshine and showers and still warm....ideal weather.

I'll send some of mine down to you.

 

[BeeJayBee]

Sunshine and showers and still warm....ideal weather.

I wish it was like that here. We've had heavy rain for most of the day, again, and it's cold.

 

[nantmoel]

Finally a day yesterday (Monday) that was sunny, so I went through a Nuc I purchased a about 6 - 8 weeks ago on 14x12 frames. They were moved into a full broad box when they arrived. They have two more frames to draw out, the Queen is still laying well and when the weather is favourable they really work like hell. I have had to feed these loads due to the poor summer we have had here in S. Wales. I check them mainly to see if they needed a super, I have heather less than ½ mile away which they seem to be working, decided not to give them a super as they have two more frames to draw.

 

[Jeff M]

My first year and it took a while to get my first hive sorted. Managed to get 20lbs from one super on that hive, so very happy with that. The bees are still bringing stuff in so I expect to get at least another 10lbs from that hive and a united swarm hive before the season is done.

 

[PaulCarroll]

We extracted on Saturday. Like many we have suffered since early June with Queen problems and of the 4 colonies I have only one has produced a crop that we could harvest as the other colonies whilst now all Queen right will need the stores to see them through winter. As such in total on Saturday we took 56 lbs of honey from this one hive, to add to the 37 lbs we took off at the end of May, so a total of 93 lbs for the year. Disappointing as having increased from 2 to 4 colonies this season, I was hoping for an increased crop around 200 lbs. Having read what some are expecting I suppose we have done ok. As previously stated it has been an odd year after a promising start.

 

[BrianO]

Anyone still got Supers on / not removed yet... ???

Like me trying to get last of Bramble .. though temp dropped think that may be it !

 

[Erichalfbee]

Last one came off this morning.
I had planned to take another three off but they are not particularly heavy, they are not capped and unlikely they will be so they have been nadired.
I have two more broods to check for Q+.
I need to treat so the last unite is being done tonight and the first oxalic will be going in on Saturday then apart from making sure they have stores for the winter, that's it for this year.

 

[YorkshireBees]

Anyone still got Supers on / not removed yet... ???

Like me trying to get last of Bramble .. though temp dropped think that may be it !

Due to work commitments and the fact that they are working the HB well I will not be taking off my supers for at least another week.

Last time I checked some had full supers and some had pretty empty supers so will be interesting to see when I do take them off if the HB has made much of a difference.

 

[gregior]

Anyone still got Supers on / not removed yet... ???

Like me trying to get last of Bramble .. though temp dropped think that may be it !

All my supers are still on,there always seems to be fresh nectar below the sealed arches of honey-very frustrating!They're still bringing in plenty of balsam so might have to wait a while yet!