Bee Swarm #8 ! What a spring!

Amazingly... our one lone hive has now produced 8, yes 8 swarms this spring!

Swarm *7 got away. It landed in a tree for only an hour or so and before we could get set to catch it, they left and traveled over a mile to a new unknown location.  Cant catch them all!

But today, in the midst of feverishly working on another time sensitive project, swarm #8 emerged and landed in a tree in the front yard. This was .. was BIG. the biggest swarm yet.  (sorry, in our haste we did not get any pictures).

We managed to repair one of the old damaged hives, and clean it up in time to catch this one.  IT was an easy catch, simply brushing them into a box worked. We put them into their new home and they immediately went to work. This seemed the strongest queen, attracting the bees from far away as we moved them to the waiting hive. It was quite a sight!

So now, there are not one, but seven working healthy hives on the farm. And.. they are all emerged from the genetics of that one hive! Very calm, efficient, dedicated bees!

We checked the main hive, the one that produced all the others, and it is becoming quite sparse. maybe 1/5 of the number of bees there was originally. checking a few of the combs showed that the swarm had taken most of the honey with them. We took this opportunity to remove some old twisted empty comb so that they can start fresh now.  And WOW.. the little bit of honey left in those combs... nothing short of incredible! The flavor of truly aged honey.. aged in the hive, is indescribable. I have never tasted honey from any store that even comes close!

So stay tuned! as soon as we can, we will be offering what I consider to be... the worlds best honey!