the first of many - I hope!!!

We broke in to see what the "girls" have been up to these past few days. It won't be long before we will need to button things up for the winter, and I can tell they feel the same way, because the hive is alive with activity. I went over to the bee shop to a little seminar in "wrapping up for the winter" so I feel like I know what I need to do.

On our last couple of checks, we haven't taken the whole hive apart, but we did today, going all the way down to the bottom box. This is the brood chamber, and it looks good. The bees will stop having brood when the winter comes, but for now, we saw "babies" in the works, so they are still producing. (the white things you see in the comb are baby bees -- the yellow is stored pollen)...

The second box, which is also brood chamber had a good number of workers, we also found more brood, and honey..... these are all excellent signs of a good strong hive.

This frame was a complete honey frame, with some capped (which is the honey that is ready to eat) and some not..... I love how the bees continue to work even when we are "messing" around.

And more of the same... in fact the second box held so much honey, and we decided if the third box was as full, we were going to steal just a little for ourselves. I can't wait to try it....

And, happily, as we checked on the third box, in was - indeed - full of honey frames.... you can only use capped honey, so this isn't the frame we are looking for....

But this one certainly is.... we took two frames... and left all the rest to the girls. I will also put a 'candy board" in when we do close up for the winter.. that, along with the honey stores, should keep them good for the cold winter months....

They're still find pollen somewhere, if you look closely, you can see the yellow in the pollen sacks. I'm guessing it's from the sunflowers, though they look like they're starting to go by. One thing though, the warm days we have been having has been a huge help....

And this is what we took...... we'll need to borrow an extractor (Deb and Dave have one) to process the honey into what we want to use.... but this is the first of many....












Fresh eggs from the hens... honey from the bees... and tomatoes from the local farmer's market.... quite the treat!!!!