Honey Harvest

We had high hopes for this years honey harvest but it's been a bad year for us. Our main hive swarmed during the week of stormy weather at the end of May, we left them with their stores so that they could make their own queen. They made their queen (who I named Margaret) and she hatched but 5 weeks on she wasn't laying, so we have had to dispatch her to bee heaven and combine her bee sisters with one of the new swarm hives.. Hopefully this means we will have a big strong colony to take through the winter and then can split them next spring. However what this does mean is the stores we left so they didn't starve during their queenless time crystallised. they had been on oil seed rape which can easily crystallise if left to long and this is the situation we are in, we managed to get some honey but not enough to write home about so we will have to wait till next year and hope for a better harvest. Although it's disappointing we've always kept bees for the love of bees, honey is a lovely bonus.

The 2 hives after the merge (blue hive)

Also I couldn't bring myself to simply squish Margaret so I popped her in a matchbox in the freezer and plan to try and set her in resin as an example of a virgin queen and out of shear curiosity and a love of craft!

Queen Margaret