I have been absent for some time now and you deserve to know why. As you know, my wife’s mother moved in with us and got to where she couldn’t be left alone. My wife and I traded places so one or the other could have some time alone. If my wife left, I would be on alert. Then we would switch places the next time.

To make a long story short, my mother-in-law passed away June 19th. We buried her in West Texas which is about 1200 miles from my home here in Pensacola, FL. Then we spent the next 4 weeks going through her house to clear it for sale.

We spent a week and a half driving back to FL. Then we spent two weeks catching up with bills, getting the stuff we brought home with us gone through so we could send the siblings the pictures and items belonging to them, and took off  some more time off and we were just about pooped.

But we are almost back to normal. Hallelujah! I say this because my wife has started back at the YMCA, and I have started eyeballing the colonies in the back yard. Three nucs, three stories tall and one full sized colony that has a deep brood box, deep honey super, 2 medium supers topped with another deep super. I now have to get some help to pull honey from my back yard and then get ready for inspection. whooboy! I know that I don’t have AFB (American Foul Brood for the newbees that may be reading this post). But just in case, Florida says that the whole hive, bees, and honey has to be burned.

I want to get the honey off before the inspector comes so at least I can keep it. AFB is a bee disease and not a human disease. I can bottle the honey and sell it to the consumers and make money. I will have to make money to replace the wooden-ware and bees if that be the case.

It has been raining here nearly every day since we got home two weeks ago. The grass is high and my lawnmower decided not to start. I got my weed eater out and tried to start it and the trigger cable was frozen. I thought that it would be cheaper to get it repaired then the mower, so I took it to the small engine repair shop in my neighborhood. Four days later, they called me and said the carburetor was frozen up or gummed up or something and it would be less expensive to to replace the whole carb rather than try to repair it. Here I am trying to catch up with my expensives and I am spending more.

Now to get into the bee stuff. Here in the northern part of  Florida and the southern part of Alabama and Georgia, the honey should have been pulled or you should be pulling this week. I will have to pull Monday or Tuesday to get ready for the Fall honey flow (which has already started.) The Goldenrod has already bloomed and there have been no Love Bugs to plague the bees. FYI – if a love bug walks on a Goldenrod bloom, the honey bees will not land on it. I don’t know why unless the love bug leaves a pheromone that is repulsive to the bees.

Anyway, the Goldenrod is a great fall honey.  It stinks to high heaven (meaning a very STRONG  odor in the honey house during extraction, but after that the honey is a sweet smelling and great tasting honey. Remember now, this is just my opinion. I have honey customers that wait till I can extract it so they can buy some.

I now have a camera so I can start putting some pictures in my posts. I just have to wait till my son in Tennessee has the time to show me how to put the pictures in my computer.

My next post will be soon, but in the meantime, keep you hive tool sharp, your smoker lit, and  your veil close by.