This past week was a bit weird. I caught some bug from my lovely daughter – it is very painful for a beekeeper to get sick in May… More importantly, I noticed a couple of big changes this weekend. To begin with, the rate of wax build-up dropped substantially in my outyards in both Henrico County and Charles City County. I really only checked 3 yards, but two of them were my two strongest yards. The rate of wax buildup/nectar storage dropped by a large margin this past week, compared to the three weeks before that. My guess is that we’re going through the temporary lull until the next set of blooms hit towards the end of the month. But, we’ll see.

Returning to my home yard (which contains immature hives and a ton of Nucs), I made another (clearly related) discovery. The Nucs had pulled much more syrup this past week. Clearly, the weather or the available blooms made the syrup more attractive. I have even heard of a couple of cases of robbing (from new beekeepers, so this is not confirmed and may just be orientation flights! I remember my days as a new beekeeper well!) Regardless, all signs point towards something different. We’ll see how they look next weekend.

The honey harvest has been good thus far. I have taken something between 20 and 25 gallons of honey off of two outyards (and I did not take all honey supers from each.) I now have a bunch of empty (although wet) supers to super any hives that need it. I should have done this before now! It’s nice finally feeling like you’ve caught up!

Finally, I’ve been getting really good feedback on the Nucs. All of the work and patience are paying off.