I have not updated my blog for a while. The summer was so busy and I was attending my bees. So here a short update what has happened.
As you know only 2 hives survived the winter. The green and the blue hive. The blue hive was driving very well the whole summer and I was able to split it in July. Now I have a new red hive and the blue allowed me to even get some honey this summer. Only a few pounds, but better than nothing.
The green hive was not doing very well the whole summer and I was only busy keeping it alive. Now in September the hive has decided to make a new queen and it seems to work very well. For the first time this year the hive is driving doing fine.
The real excitement this summer was, that I helped a neighbor to remove a bee swarm which was settling in on a tree in their back yard. As the bees have been high up on the tree, the neighbor allowed the tree to be cut and I safely caught the bees and have now a forth hive. This hive is now my white hive and has grown very well during the summer. So this year I will go with 4 hives in the winter. 3 hives have now new queens and only one hive has an older queen. This should finally allow me next year to really harvest honey in a bigger scale. We will see how it goes. First all they all have to survive the coming winter.