GET OFF of My CLOUD

I said, “Hey, you, get off of my cloud
Hey, you, get off of my cloud
Hey, you, get off of my cloud
Don’t hang around cause two’s a crowd
On my cloud baby”

— Mick Jagger/Keith Richard (Rolling Stones)

Being almost first to the flower does not bring in the honey.

LOOKING GOOD!!! … this young larvae brood will become the nurse bees that will begin raising our winter bees this year. From one day to three day growths. Always nice to see. Love the photograph quality of Greg Butler. One can nearly see how carefully crafted the cells are to provide drainage. Amazing stuff, those worker bees.

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Some beekeepers simply are not, NOT interested in harvesting honey. This movie was sent to me when upon inspection the nuc/queen growing guy was shocked at the amount of honey some of his colonies were putting out. Some of it was due to the abnormally warm and dry spring, but he feels that it was due to his queen caging this year. Mind you, I was not doing this and I had splits, swarms and queen production coming out of my ear. Less so the honey production I wanted. 

Perhaps the old-timers had it right.   Under the right circumstances, “a brood break boosts honey production.  If they’re not feeding larvae, they’re putting it away.  Tremendous flow this year.” Imagine his sugar high honey shock. “My initial thought upon opening this colony this morning was “oh my god… what have I done?”   

His queens now are forced to lay again into emerged cells and they are STUFFED!  And the double deep has the top box packed with honey wall to wall. “It was so heavy I needed to take frames out in order to lift it.”  

Caged for 27 days starting May 27.  

And so it goes for the Beek who does not want to maximize out honey production, but simply was trying to keep his mites low going into July by caging a queen.