So....How was your year?

[SgtMaj]

Started with 0, advertized swarm removal in craigslist for no more than 26 hours and got 5 swarm calls (2 were referrals that came later though). Of those I caught 4 swarms, one left before I could throw a hive together to put them in. Of those four I kept two, gave one away once it was in the bee vac, one never got established and died out (late season swarm in October had been sitting out in the rain for a while before I got to them, small cluster, not a big loss). Of the two I kept, I sold one and am holding onto the other one which looks great and has given me around 2-3 gallons of honey this year (which I gave to all my neighbors, friends, and coworkers, so I'm now much more popular than I was at the beginning of the year ) and still has plenty to overwinter on.

All in all, pretty good year.

[tecumseh]

justin writes:
i don't like having the last word.

tecumseh:
man on man justin sounds like your summer was tough? make my crying in my beer look like salt on the rim of a margarita glass.

[BillWi]

Here in central Wisconsin, I started the year with 6 hives from 3 last year. Had to purchase 3 2lb packages to make my 6. Added 100 new frames of Perco foundation not drawn out to the 6 hives thru the summer. At the end of the year tallyed up. Pulled between 700-750lbs of honey out of 5 hives. My 6th hive didn't produce all that much and I just left it for this coming winter. Blooms in my area seemed to fall with the right amount to rain and dry spells. Overall I feel I did pretty well. All I was really looking for was to have those 100 new frames drawn out for next year, and now that the bee's have done that for me, I should be in a great position for next year..

BillWI