I expect to harvest a little honey this year from this outyard. They are filling the "Flow hive" supers since I'm not constantly stealing their resources for queen cell starters and queen mating nucs. The Flow Hive super on the right is one I built before the product was on the market and they had sent me some of the frames. The two on the left are the ones that come to the market. The hive between doesn't have supers, just four boxes of brood and bees. Also here is a picture of me harvesting the flow hive. I got six flexible tubes that would fit the openings and cut six holes in the lid of a five gallon bucket. You use the keys to open up the frames and the honey runs out into the bucket. Pretty slick. Expensive, but so easy and no mess to clean up.
I saw this frenzy going on and turned the cover over to block the entrance. They were doing this same thing before I blocked it. They would pile up until they would fall in clumps. I slowed it down to try to see it better.
I consider propolizing a good trait for bees (maybe not for the beekeeper). Here is a mating nuc I found this year. The drilled hole is about 5/8". The reduced hole is about 5/16".
It wasn't working right and then it would and then it wouldn't. This is what I found. It couldn't get out, so I left it and used another smoker. It was finally out after two days.
We needed to feed because of a dearth and we still needed to finish building up the 8 frame nucs for winter. We bought 50 six gallon buckets and bought 3,450 pounds of sugar in 25 lb bags. We worked out the maximum strength we could do with hot water from my tap (140 F) and not have it crystallize out. We put one 25 pound bag in each bucket with a heaping tablespoon of ascorbic acid, then 18 pints of water and stir it with a five gallon paint stirrer. After 10 to 30 minutes we stir it again.
