When we moved to the farm, we had to start fresh with the Honey Bees. We had a hive in Marietta before moving to the farm, but the hive collapsed literally weeks before we were to move the hive up here to the farm. So, in the Spring of 2008 we started 2 new hives here on the farm. We grew the hives, but never harvested any honey that year. Later in the fall, during a long cloudy week, we apparently lost charge in our solar fence that protected the bees, and a bear wiped out one of the hives. The next spring, we replaced that hive, and again grew the hives through the year, and still never harvested any honey. In 2010, we had the two hives, going well, and one of them swarmed and it turns out we lost that whole hive. The remaining hive was pretty strong, so around August we harvested honey for the first time. We got almost 3 gallons from 9 frames. YUMMY. We hope this spring (2011) to split the strong hive into another hive and provide new queens. We will see how that goes!
