Dewey's Bee Blog

Extracted (crush and strain) from 2 of my  hives.

Schampel Oscar (back yard)
quite a lot of brood (all stages) and bees. Very little stores. Very little pollen. They have drawn out a little comb in the top box (3) but it's all empty.

Schampel TBH
Full hive. These girls have been hanging out on the front of the hive every evening and into the night. By morning they are all inside. Extracted 3 bars of honey from the south end. Dropped one of them back in, all over the girls. They were quite pissed. When trying to pick it up again, I took 2 stings. One sting on the end of each of my index fingers. After putting the gloves on, I took about a dozen more stings into the gloves (I did not feel them). I cleaned my mess up as best as I could and closed this end of the hive. The north end of the hive is cross combed and would be difficult to get into. I left it alone.

Rosier TBH
Also very full. I pulled 2 bars out of the south end and about 4 bars from the north end. Used a goose feather to brush the girls off the comb. Did not smoke them. They get a little ornery at this. Took another sting on the thumb and another on the back of the right hand. Very pleased with how straight this colony has built up. Left them several bars of honey that weren't completely full or capped. Left empty bars between the drawn out bars.

Peczuh TBH
These girls were pissed from the second I opened the hive. I could see from the end that they haven't stored much. They are still at only about 12 bars. Due to their ornery disposition, I closed it up and didn't look any further.

Ended up with a full 5 gallon bucket of stacked comb which when strained, yielded almost 3 gallons of honey. :)