As many readers will know, after producing stellar amounts of honey last year, our bees buzzed off last November, never to return. Undeterred we doubled up this year and now have two hives.

I’ve been keeping an eye on them over the months and it has been a little odd to say the least. One hive has been going ahead great guns as far as honey production, while number two, although seemingly very healthy, and with loads of flowers about – especially lavender, it just hasn’t been producing.

The bees in hive 1 have only just started to produce cells in the top box after which they can start to think about making honey. Meanwhile in hive number 2, the top box is almost full of capped honey and so is ready for harvest. So today I took off 4 frames. Here is one below.

 

As we only have two hives and an extractor costs in the hundreds of Euros we have to get the honey out the hard way. Basically I cut the honey out of the frames and allow it to drain through a colander as below.

 

So, I’ll take off 7 frames from hive number 2  in the next couple of days and see how we go.