This morning we checked on the bees again, and it is clear that there will be two honey harvests this year! We are having the best year ever this year, so far! The bees in all 5 hives are healthy, multiplying quickly, and making a lot of honey in their brood boxes and supers (which are the more shallow boxes on top where the queen doesn’t have access, so there are no eggs or larvae, just honey. Supers are the boxes we harvest).

We added another hive body box to one of the new hives, making it three boxes tall now, which is the final height it will be before we start adding supers. The hive body boxes are where honey and pollen are stored and brood are raised, and where the queen permanently resides. We will add hive body boxes to the other two new hives when we visit them next week, since they’re almost ready for them at this point. Once those are nearly full, we start adding supers to the tops of them.

It looks like we will have 2-3 boxes to harvest in July, which would give us around 15-20 pounds of honey. The next harvest will happen in September or October and will be the larger of the two, assuming everything continues to go well in the hives.

While inspecting hive #3, I felt a familiar and unwelcome jab on my hand, and sure enough, a bee had stung me right through my goat leather gloves! I don’t think the reaction will be too bad though, since the stinger barely broke my skin and ended up stuck on the outside of the glove. I couldn’t help but ask, “why me?” Why am I the one who always seems to get stung? What gives, ladies? Why do you keep jabbing me?

That’s okay. I still adore them.