What a glorious day ot go to a beeyard, and one in gorgeous country...This particular beeyard is about 5 milesfrom my home, it is on an organic dairy farm and surround on one side by organic farm...the area of the yard is still a bit on the wild side, there was a pond close by...lots of blackberry blooming, poppys..wildflowers.
Charles has about 16 hives they are not piled high with supers, he really doesn't care about the honey, he harvests pollen...the pollen was incredible, all colors even a beautiful lavender color, fresh and tasty. He uses mostly SBB's or no bottoms. The no bottoms have an entrance hole near the top of the hive body. he does not treat his bees with anything. He uses foundationless frames he will put a starter strip of old comb which he fastens with melted wax...he showed up beautiful new comb...as well as an old piece of comb whereby the cells were certainly small...
Even though he keeps this way, he still looses colonies...Darwinistic I suppose...I am hoping to work more closely with him as he inspects his hives, so that I can "see" what to do...I am so grateful to have an SBB on my hive and that you all are here to offer this information...
I will have photos pretty soon I hope!