What a difference a year makes.

2009, with all the rain and cool temperatures, made for a terrible beekeeping year. The foragers had a terrible time collecting the nectar that they needed, there were reports of odd queen issues all over (we had one hive re-queen three times) and the damp air made it difficult for the workers to dry down the nectar to the point where they could cap the honey.

2010 rolled around and only 3 of 15 colonies survived. Most ran short on stores, but two were fooled by a March warm spell and wouldn’t leave their brood to go back to the honey when it chilled again and a number had some pest issues (mice in two and a weasel did in two more).

The weather’s been on our side this year: spring came early and we were able to start making splits in April. After some judicious splitting, 1 caught swarm and a cutout, we’re coming into fall with 11 strong hives and 6 nucleus colonies. We’re not expecting to gather much in the way in honey, but that’s not what we’re about. Honey’s great stuff, but we’ll trade it for strong bees any day.

Monday, Labour Day in North America, will give us a better idea of where we stand and we have a new, well sheltered, yard this year that will be a good winter location. I’ll take more pictures.