Question for Maine beekeepers.

[Luke]

When do you normally have bees filling honey supers here? This is my first summer in Maine and the bees seem to be very slow getting started this year. (We have had quite a bit of rain this year though.)
The two packages I started in late April still have not started working in the second deep brood chambers. The hive I brought up from Massachusetts has not put anything in the super I added two weeks ago. They started drawing the three cut comb frames I put into an almost full super from last year that I gave back to them but have not put any honey in the cells.
Is this just going to be a bad year due to the weather or are things going to pick up soon?
I am used to getting about 100 pounds from each hive back in Mass. Last year I didn't get my package until the end of May and still got 100 pounds of honey.

[mobees]

This year May and June has been the most rain in over a 100 years. We missed maybe 3 or 4 flows, and if you were lucky to be in an area, where there is a good flow during a sunny period you got some. Maine has some excellent flows especially in fall. Throw a pollen patty on and get them ready for the goldenrod, a full deep on a strong hive is easy pickens. Just hope it doesn't rain any more or like last year a drought for weeks. If you are in Kennebunk you probably missed the locust. George might have some good info. Do you use an excluder??

[Luke]

I usually don't use an excluder but since I have been using the DE hive I have run into problems with the queen laying in the supers. The hive from last year is a DE, the packages were started in Langstroth's.
How are things down in Beverly? My hive was in Danvers last year and did very well.

[mobees]

Most are way down from last year. A couple are really good but it may be drifting. I would say so far, fair everywhere. It is going to rain more this week. I hope the Basswood is good.

[mainelybees]

Luke, I'm about 45 minutes north of Portland. Each year is pretty different for me. I just put 4 medium supers on my remaining hive on June, 23rd. That was just lazyness on my part, normally I have supers on at the beginning of the month. I'll check them in a couple weeks just once and then not bother them until late August unless something doesn't seem right from the outside. The bee population looks great at this point. I keep a screen bottom board on them and will add a ventilated cover with a top entrance next week, I'm sure this damp, cool weather can't last too much longer. I'll keep you updated on their progress.

Good luck and keep in touch. David