We were hoping for a half ton in 2018 and we got our heaviest harvest to date at 800 lbs. We’re starting with 13 hives this year instead of 12. The rest is just wait and see, though I believe that prayer helps, too! There’s too many other variables to make any predictions. We are hoping to double our hive numbers as a bare minimum. 26 instead of 22 means that we’ve got a good start! We need the rain to water all the plants but we need some warm, sunny days too to get the girls to continue foraging!
We lost six hives this past winter, so we were down to twelve. We know that one hive starved – all stored food was gone, including that which we fed them at Christmas time. I don’t like having to feed the bees, but I like dead bees (dead hives) even less. Our winters here simply are not cold enough for the girls to cluster through, meaning they end up eating more food than what’s recommended for them to have. On the other hand, when they start to need food, it’s often too cold to open the hives to give them more food. The good news is bees are very prolific, responding to God’s command, to “be fruitful and multiply”. We managed to bounce back to 22 hives, simply splitting what we had and buying some new queens to get the split off colonies started! We did not buy any additional bees, other than queens this year, which is a wonderful first for us!!!
July 17/18: I bought three cases of jars, lids, and labels today. Apparently I didn't even get half of what we need to get started! 🤔
me: Yay! Half ton, here we come! 😁🤓😁🤓 TW: That’s a good problem right? me: Exactly!!! 😁 MD: would it be fair to say your honey is "raw"? me: LOL, it's so raw, it's still in the hives! We have some ready to harvest now, and we want to draw out the comb so we can give it back ASAP. The extractor is fixed and ready to go. We need more jars and a new filter. Hoping to get started this weekend but it looks like rain. MD: i wondered about the raw,since I used to get it at Goodnesss Me and it seems to me if I remember correctly it was more expensive? me: We won't pasteurize honey, there's already too much of that available in stores. It's fine if you're cooking or baking with it because heating it so much will kill anything beneficial in it, anyway. For optimum health benefits, raw honey is best and from as close to where you live as possible. If honey is too sweet, pollen is better!