The queen arrives with the bees separated in a small box. The box is removed and inserted in the hive.

Next the bees are dumped from their container into the hive.

The box with the queen has a wax plug in the end. It takes the bees 2-3 days to chew up the wax and release the queen. This gives them time to learn her smell and accept her before she is released into the general population of bees.

In spite of a cool, wet spring, by May we were already seeing numerous frames capped over with honey and pollen.

It was also good to observe that the Queens were laying by the evidence of brood or bee larvae in many of the cells.

May is an important month, as temperatures warm and the time of year with the maximum number of wildflowers and other nectar producing plants. It is the most important month for honey production.

We planted white clover as a cover crop in the area we have surrounding the hives, a favorite of the bees.

In mid-June the Sourwood honey flow begins and we added extra supers so the bees have plenty of room to store honey. This light honey with a slight tang is world renowned for its delicate flavor.

The three hives were each very different. One was super strong, with more bees and had already filled 3 supers (the wooden boxes and frames) with brood (bee larvae) and honey by the beginning of June.

The second was also doing good but the third appears weak. They had barely begun work on the frames in their third super.

With the intense heat of summer, the hive often have a cluster of bees on the outside to reduce the temperature inside the hive. I inserted some wood spacers between the top boxes to allow heat to escape.