How the season ended

While Ms. Baby Bee kept me busy from June 24th onward, I did manage to work my bees in July and September, and we extracted in October--a bit late, but new motherhood is a complicated thing.

The two colonies ended up much as they began, and in a different summer, I would have managed them much differently. One colony built up nicely, the other was slow, and never really got strong. I would have/should have requeened the second hive, so give it a chance to build up for winter, or at the very least, combined the two, but I did neither. The stronger hive made a medium super of honey--not horrible, for a first year colony from a package, but not great, either. It was a wet year, and other beekeepers were complaining of bees staying home and eating supplies rather than storing up more, so I wasn't alone in this.

I gave each hive a medium super of honey/sugar syrup mix that had been packed away by last year's bees, and put them to bed for the winter with the entrance reducers. I doubt the weaker colony will make it (and if it does, I'll order a new queen for it right away in spring), but I'm hopeful for the strong one.

These Buckfast are extrememly gentle. When I put on an escape board to pull honey, neither colony reacted much--my jacket and veil were completely unnecessary. Same is true when I pulled the supers and the escape boards. So they get points for being gentle (important when you live in town). However, they are heavy propolizers. The weaker colony had started to build a propolis "drape" across the entrance--something I'd heard of bees doing, but had never seen.

I will be ordering more bees for next year. I have a friend who would like a couple of hives on her land; I was thinking New World Carniolans. She's out in the country, so extremely gentle bees are less necessary than here(though as a new beek, gentleness would be a plus for her, I'm sure).