I have had some situations to appear in my way to keep me out of the apiary. As my wife has been home from the hospital about two months now and she is getting self sufficient, I am able to go to the grocery store, run errands, and help some beekeepers that I am mentoring.  I am still working on my 08 income tax data. My son and daughter-in-law got a friend’s family to come over and clean 3 1/2 rooms of my house: kitchen, dining room, living room, and foyer. The shop was also rearranged so the honey equipment and tools, that I had parked in the house, could be moved out there. I now cannot find anything of honey nature or kitchen pots and pans, dishes, and food. I will find all that stuff eventually.

For the last two weeks, I have given my “bee talk” three times and have been overseeing the sale of a beekeeper’s equipment. He has given up the life of beekeeping for health reasons. I spent a week over there finding all the equipment in hidden places, meeting with buyers, and getting equipment ready for the burn pile. I have one more day over there and that will be completed.

I have three more appointments to talk bees in the next 10 days. After all that, I can start cleaning some supers so I can pull honey and extract. I am only about three weeks later this year than last year for my first honey run. However, this year, I didn’t go to Tupelo, so I don’t have that extraction to schedule. I might have some Gallberry in the top super on some of my hives. I will let you know after I extract.

I have a friend that volunteered to help me clean my supers. All I have to do is take them to his house. I can do that for the help. It is much more fun when you have someone to talk to while cleaning box after box after box after box.

I have two young men volunteer to help me pull honey and possibly they will stay for the extraction process. One of them hasn’t extracted yet for his first time, and the other doesn’t even have his wooden ware to put together yet. I will get to tell them what to do and show them what I am talking about. That is going to be the Life Of Riley.

As soon as the honey flow is over, you need to check your brood boxes and bottom boards. When the honey has been pulled, that is the time you can change out the bad brood boxes for new ones. Then you can put on an empty super so the bees will have a place to work.

Good luck until next time.