SoCal Beekeeping

A Harvest and Bearding
7/8/2018
P. Michael Henderson

My wife was running out of honey so I went into my old hive and took seven frames of capped honey.  Got a bit over 20 pounds of honey after extraction.  I didn't take any pictures - sorry.  

I had been worried about that hive - I thought they looked under populated, as if they had swarmed, but when I went into the hive to harvest, there were plenty of bees and they had quite a bit of honey.

I ordered some labels for our honey from VistaPrint.  Although we don't sell our honey, I wanted the jars we give away to look good.

It's been very hot here - about 100 during the day - so the bees have been "bearding" in the evening.  Here's a picture of the Rio Bravo hive bearding.  Just too hot in the hive, I suppose:-)

 I plan to give this hive to another beekeeper soon.  But we'll have to wait for cooler weather so that all the bees are inside the hive.  We'll wait until dark, when all the bees are inside the hive, then block the entrance and transport it to her yard.  The bottom board is screened so I'll pull out the slide to make sure they don't overheat during the transport.