All Is Not Well
We harvested our honey yesterday. I know. It's very late. But we have been
busy and we didn't get to it in a timely fashion. I had expected to open the
hive and have it overflowing with honey. In August last year we got almost 5
gallons out of it. But that was not the case. We have a top bar hive and the
bars were not all used. The back two had empty comb that looked as if it had
never been used. The rest had comb that was only partially filled, although the
cells looked like they had been full at one time ... but maybe not with honey;
maybe with brood or pollen. We ended up only taking a bit over 2 quarts out
because it looked so strange. We don't want to stress the bees over the winter
if there is something wrong.
We added a second hive this summer with bees from Eldorado Canyon. The queen must have died before they could get established, because although they started to make comb and store honey, eventually they just ate all the honey they had made and disappeared. The original hive seemed busy and happy, though, so I didn't worry too much. Now I am wondering if something hasn't happened to bother all the bees. I wonder if the county sprayed the ditches. We only saw them mowing. I keep an eye out if anyone is spraying. Our neighbors to the west sprayed for mullein. And our neighbors to the east did spot spraying for thistles, which they do every year. The wild flowers were down in numbers, but our vegetables and flowers were kept watered.
If anyone can shed some light on this sad turn of events, I'd appreciate it...
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