Last fall we had one new hive of bees we started in the Spring that produced like gangbusters! We harvested nearly 36 lbs of honey in the fall and we left a frame partially full of honey for them to over-winter with, but unfortunately the hive didn't survive. It's our second hive loss in two years, and as new bee keepers it's been disappointing and somewhat discouraging for sure.
Our first hive did well its first year, and over-wintered successfully. However, in the Spring the hive decided they needed a new queen and she apparently didn't like our setup so she swarmed with the colony. We didn't actually realize this until after the fact because we weren't watching the hive well enough to see that they were producing a new queen. We might have been able to prevent the swarming had we watched more closely.
Our second hive didn't survive Winter because I left too many frames on the hive and they couldn't stay warm. We should have winterized the hive better and removed another frame or two to consolidate the hive. Frustrating to say the least, and a costly learning experience. We haven't given up though.
Another thing we learned from this last experience is that it's a good idea to have some honey harvest for the Spring rather than sell or use it all in the Fall. We'll see if we can work that into our normal harvesting practice.
This past weekend, we harvested about 25 lbs of honey from the frames that were left behind. We'll clean and prep the foundations and frames for two new packages of bees for hives we're starting back up this Spring. Fingers crossed we improve our bee keeping skills to maintain some hives for a least a few years successfully for a change.
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