The summer dearth started about the end of June. Since the bees have no major nectar or pollen source, they tend to rob from each other. To discourage this behavior, we feed sugar water to our bees. This helps to keep them calm and focused on well, not robbing. We have also been making splits and re-queening our weaker hives. 

 

We are watching our Varroa counts and treating. The Varroa is a parasitic mite and attaches usually to the body of the bee, feeds on the bees fat cells and introduces other deadly viruses. This is a critical time of year as the queen begins to lay fewer eggs and the mite population builds inside the hive. Making splits now helps to give us a jump start on overwintered nucleus hives ready for our customers in March.

We moved 26 strong and healthy hives on our trailer into Franklin, North Carolina on June 20th and returned to pick them up on July 26th. I like to call it “Summer Camp for our bees”. It’s all about the sourwood flow which is a hardwood tree native to North America. The sourwood nectar produces a unique taste, earthy with subtle notes of a soft anise and spice flavor. We arrived at sunset into our NC location, closed up the entrances of the hives, and moved the hives back to Hancock County. About a 3 hour drive. We allow the bees to settle for 2-3 days, then remove the honey supers (some weighing 50 lbs) and extract the honey. It was a successful harvest - almost 800 pounds of honey this season!

The name Sourwood is derived from the acrid taste of its leaves, but tea made from these leaves is widely used by mountain climbers as a thirst-quencher. Pioneers used the sap as one ingredient in a concoction used for treating fevers; the bark for chewing to soothe mouth pains; and leaf tea for treating diarrhea, indigestion and dysentery. But the best known by-product of the Sourwood tree is the hard-to-find and extremely delicious honey that bees produce from the fragrant blossoms.