Goodwood House Oregon

Honey Bees 2010

An awesome bee year for me.....  I collected swarms for the first time which was incredibly fun.
I had a phenomenal honey harvest of 150 pounds!

And, I am going into (bee) winter with 5 nucs and 8 hives... all with laying queens!

The bee yard in full summer swing.......

A mixture of swarms settling down, established hives making honey surplus and
queenless hives used for making nucs and beefing up other hives.

Close up of the hives with supers on them... the girls working hard for me!

Working the leeks.  The honey does not taste like onion, thank goodness!

I have a venerable old Linden tree in my yard of which the bees take full advantage.

The supers all taken off 1st week of August.  All the girls are smashed down into 2 deeps.

I consolidated all the frames from all the supers and took only the ones with honey in them.
I ended up with 5 full supers and 6 frames.

I had to put plastic on them to keep the bees out.

What the tops of the frames look like.  I mix wood and plastic with no ill effects.

My 7 nucs, but 2 are empty...
Of the 5 queens I installed 4 took.  I'm going to wait and see for the 5th one.

The honey house sign!  Super cute!

The amazing honey house with all the machinery which saves me my temper!
This place does it all!  They spin the frames in the round vat looking things.
I can't remember what the sinks are for..  some kind of straining?
All the pipes are to carry honey from one place to another.

This is the uncapper, the knife is heated by steam.. the cappings fall into that covered vat for processing.

This is for collecting propolis I believe.

Where the frames rest when they are spun...

The beekeeper's own personal tank of honey to sell..

MY personal 150 pounds of honey and 3 1/2 pounds of wax cappings!
W.O.W.!!!  Great year!!!

Thanks girls!!!!

My little creatures!

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