I was reading my Bee Culture, reading Yahoo forum, and daydreaming when I had a flashing thought. I tried to find the basis for this thought, but came up with a blank. I realized that the Spring major Wildflower nectar flow here in NW Florida is nearly over with if one wants to go to Tupelo and Gallberry. However, wildflowers are still blooming during the late Spring and Summer. Just not as much as in the early Spring. I just like to collect different single nectar sources so I can offer a variety of honey tastes to my customers.

I just had another thought. I have elected to do this post and research during the day as opposed as the night and now I have lost half of the daylight that I could have been working in the apiaries, or visiting that area of my back yard that I have chosen for cleaning boxes and frames, replacing foundation, painting and marking my wooden ware. That was a choice that you could say was a bad one.

Working with bees and bee related stuff has to be flexible, but should be done with a plan to get the maximum amount of work done in a minimum amount of time. This is where organization of time would benefit the beekeeper. Also it would give him/her more time to rest when rest would be more beneficial to the body. I never said that I was organized.

While we are on that subject, you should have all your apiaries neat and trimmed so the landowner will consider letting you keep your bees there awhile longer. Besides making a good impression on the landowner, the bees will benefit from a trimmed apiary by not having to work through a jungle of weeds and grass just to get out of the hive and back in again. Also, if you have weeds growing in the entrance of the hive, that would be like giving the ants and termites a super highway to the hive.

Mowing and trimming should be done 2-3 times a year. In January/February, May/September, and any other time that you have a good rain and the growing things get tall. It also makes it easy for you to work your hives without tripping on vines, or getting you feet wet, or dropping the hive tool and losing it because it hid in the tall grass or weeds. One other thing comes to mind, the tall grass/weeds can hide critters that you might not want to stumble upon a suddenlike. Hehe.

That is enough for now. Have a Beeutiful day!