My son, eat thou honey, for it is good!

[Don McCombs]

No argument here. Sweet clover, alternately called white clover, produces a light colored, milder tasting honey. Buckwheat produces a very dark honey. Almost the color of coffee. Very strong in flavor and not very popular with most people. Taste being what it is, though, some people really like it.

[tmays]

Glad to see folks with bee knowledge on here. I'm considering starting a hive and know absolutely nothing about it. Lol

[Don McCombs]

Thomas,
Get yourself a copy of Beekeeping for Dummies. Not implying that you're a dummie, but it's a good, easy to understand book on the basics of beekeeping. Read it, cover to cover, several times. Next, get yourself involved in a local beekeeping club. Find someone in the club that can act as a mentor to you. Ask if you can look over their shoulder when working on their bees. Do all this before investing in any bees or beekeeping equipment, except maybe a bee jacket and gloves. You'll soon figure out whether your interest is real.

[rockfarmer]

on all , especially on the "Beekeeping for Dummies" book. Everything you need to know, and more!

Has anybody used one of the these yet? www.honeyflow.com

I bought one and plan on establishing a hive in it this spring. Seems like a no brainier, unless you like comb honey.

[Don McCombs]

I'll be anxious to hear about your experience with the Flow hive.

[Don McCombs]

Final tally for this season was 11 gallons from two colonies. The bees were kind this year.

[rockfarmer]

That's a great harvest Don! Enjoy!

I'll be pulling here in the next 2-3 weeks.

[rockfarmer]

Make that 40 weeks...would have been longer but a friend who is curious about beekeeping stopped by yesterday and said "let's go check your hive for some honey", so went out and smoked em, pulled the lid on the top super and saw capped frames! We put an escape board under the top super and left it overnight. Today we pulled the super with six full frames and extracted 13 pints. The two frames on the end only had honey on one side and only half full so we left them alone. Another delicious and dark harvest, with more in the tank.

You can clearly see a difference between the honey my hive consistently produces, both in color and taste, and some store bought clover honey on the right. The dark honey is much thicker than the clover honey and tastes much better, IMO.

Hopefully we get some rain in late August - September and there will be another flow before Thanksgiving.

Hope your hives are doing well this summer, and not too wet!

[Don McCombs]

Most beekeeper's around here lost most or all of their bees this past winter. I was fortunate to have lost none. Pulled one honey super off about a week ago. Waiting for my friend to start extracting, so that I can get mine done, too. I've had three swarms out of three colonies this summer. The last one was on August 1st. Very unusual. I retrieved the first swarm and a fellow bee club member got the last one. The middle one got away. Now, if I can just keep them all alive this winter.

[Bob F in SC]

I have 4 hives and pulled 14 medium frames and extracted 5 gallons. Was light in color.

[rockfarmer]

Captured a small flow between August 4 and Thanksgiving. Thank you HoneyBees!

Extracted the same 6 frames as before. The two frames on the ends had minimum capped honey on the inside only so we did not disturb and left it for the bees. Placed the empty frames back on hive for the bees to clean up.

My friend placed the empty super back on the hive, not noticing the uneven spacing between the frames...bees filled it up with comb which unfortunately required quite a bit of honey, and time. Efficient creatures for sure.

Not sure about the flavor yet.

Has a hint of buttery merlot or something like that to it. Low viscosity, clear and dark, again. Last year was minty. TX sage bloomed nicely in September, has a not so pleasant odor to it when blooming, but the bees love it, maybe that is what we are tasting. Who knows other than 2-3 generations of bees. Plenty of wildflowers and trees producing nectar well into October around here. Just had our first frost last week...killed the tomatoes

Final tally; 15 pints plus undisclosed amount eaten during extracting and jarring.

[Bill Hudson]

Looks good, Tim. Enjoy!

Bill

[Don McCombs]

I ended up getting 11.5 gallons this fall. A little over 100 pounds. That’s from three hives.