I am a first year urban bee keeper.
The bees were hived on Mother's Day weekend, May 10th, with 2 purchased nucs & queens into a Warre and a top bar hive. Then the rain-maggeddon arrived, and lasted for a month. Generally speaking this has been a slow start but so far not too much has gone wrong. They were supplement fed only the first week with sugar syrup, then switched over to brood cakes till the end of May.
It has been 100F pretty much for 3 weeks now, and the pollen has been naturally drastically reduced, but both hives seem to exhibit normal activity.
Both hives are free form frames, and upon inspection the combs seem to be almost all regular build. Inspections were done on June 10th, July 11th, for both hives, on Aug 2nd a complete inspection was performed only on the Top Bar as I had to give them some more frames, and make some room, the Warre seems to be better ventilated.
I am in the city of Dallas, and know that we will end up with a longer season than if they were in the country or further North, but the crazy weather seems to have slowed down the ladies, pretty convinced that honey may not be in the cards this season.
Upon this last observation, as of today Aug 2nd, the top bar hive had one solid frame of capped honey, and the rest were still full of brood, hoping that with the expansion the bearding at the from entrance will be reduced and they will have more breathing room.
I do have perennials that will continue blooming through the end of September, with the biggest being the Golden Rod, so the adventure continues!
Super excited to be a part of this forum and looking forward to some non-stop learning!
Topic: Hello from Dallas, Texas (Read 1914 times)