Honey arrives !!

Our bees have been buzzing around all summer. Bunny and I added hive capacity early in the summer so the bees would have space to make and store honey from the summer nectar flows. They managed to make a good bit of honey for the winter but not very much extra (for us!) We did manage to harvest about a quart of honey though. And it is tasty! It has a very light color with a tiny hint of green in it. It's very sweet (like honey) with a little bit of heartiness.

During the last few weeks our bees became extremely active. Many were buzzing not only around the hive but around our deck and the area where we park our cars. Bunny and I were having a little trouble getting close to the hives and doing things in our back yard we needed to do. The bees started following us into the house (!) I actually got stung several times including once just below my eye (!!). One of our beekeeper friends, Jerry Wallace from MABA (our local beekeepers assoc) told us the cause of this behavior could be robbing. We've been feeding our bees sugar syrup since May and now that the summer nectar flows are over and the bees have no ready food source, they are willing to rob other hives, especially hives OUR hives...with a constant supply of sugar syrup. Bunny and I stopped feeding our bees and the aggressive behavior stopped immediately. Things in our backyard are back to their harmonious normal state.