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Bee Keeping is...fun....
Yesterday I tried to beat the heat and went to the bee yards early to pull the honey supers(boxes of honey to harvest). I found more dead hives, that's 9 dead since June 1. The bees I cut out of the tree a week ago had absconded(left like a bad father who went out for milk)...and as usual, production appears to be down from my hopes and dreams.
I didn't get pics because I was doing this myself, but it's pretty much the same as posts previous years. I take a fume board(board with felt inside) spray it with honey bandit(smells like Almond extract, bees hate it and move down) and put that on top box. After a few minutes, you take that box off, put it on a stand and blow out as many bees as you can with a leaf blower. Then stack and bring to location for extraction.
About 3/4 of the way through I started getting work calls. I unzipped my hood to take a call and went back to it...however, i forgot to zip my hood back on, grabbed a box that was about face high and removed it. I suppose 25 bees immediately flew inside my veil. It could have been worse, but it wasn't the best experience in my life.
Today I'm getting my new extraction setup ready, and I'll begin extraction of 2022 honey today and tomorrow. I'll try to get some pics and videos of that if there is interest I will share.
Also....testing has revealed that I really enjoy the raspberry creamed honey with salty pretzel sticks.....great snack.
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