We have taken the first Easterbees honey of 2019!

We were so happy with the honey from last season that we decided to go from three hives to four this year.

The honey taken yesterday was from just two of the hives. It was getting dark when we finished the second hive and so we left the remaining hives.

One of the hives is a little lighter in terms of the quantity of honey. The reason is that in the winter one of the hives blew away and we had to buy a new queen. She took a while to re-colonise her troops and they are therefore a little behind in their labours.

It's a great start and we have about 80 pounds of honey from the first two hives.

The bees are visiting the rapeseed fields on and around the farm. Rapeseed is a good crop for honey bees, offering both nectar and pollen in early spring and it is available in enormous acreages close to the hives.

Fortunately, we didn't have as many supers on as we needed for each hive. The flying bees are spinning the honey into the stores and then the house bees carry the honey upstairs and put it to bed with a cap on it. However, they have brought in so much lately that they didn't get the chance to cap it.

We would normally leave the honey until it evaporated from 21% to 18% moisture but because there is so much in the hives the bees have run out of room. We therefore had to take some honey to make a bit of space for the bees to continue their work.

Easterbees honey, made in the world with a little help from Steph and David!