In an article this spring I mentioned that all our eight hives made it through a particularly difficult winter. Now, in high summer, they're thriving. I love to sit by the hives and watch thousands of worker bees streaking up into the sky, and then returning with that tiny drop of nectar collected from fifty or more flowers. In her lifetime, a single worker will produce on average only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey. But with 60,000 sisters helping in the effort, the hive can fill up quickly.

We had three swarms this spring (that we know about). Two flew high into the trees and then took off for parts unknown, but one settled nearby in a cluster of elderberry trunks. In general, beekeepers don't like losing swarms -----   half the bees leave with the old queen and a lot of honey goes with them. But I think it's a sign of a good, strong hive, and I've never seen a hive suffer from having lost a swarm. I managed to convince the last swarm to accept a spare hive box that I hastily set up, and after a day or two, I combined the box with the weakest of our colonies.

Last week, Shannon, one of our interns, and I went into the hives and took a small portion of the honey -----   about eight of the medium sided frames and seven of the deep frames. Using a hot knife to remove the cappings which seal the cells, and after spinning the frames in our centrifugal extractor, we had almost fifty pounds of the beautiful amber liquid. Needless to say, we consumed a goodly amount of honey during this process: chunks of comb and fingers-full of honey-laden cappings. The trays of wax cappings are placed near the hives and in a day the bees had all the honey cleaned up, leaving nothing behind but dry, powdery wax. In the final step, I transferred the honey from the bucket into jars, to await our sweetening needs through the coming year.