New hope for the coming spring!!

We are gearing up again with high hopes for a fantastic summer.  We have secured a new location for our bees near fields of irrigated alfalfa and abundant sweet clover.  We are anticipating a harvest over 100 gallons for 2013!!

I am currently working on a deal to purchase several hives leaving the almonds.  My plan is to make splits and have some nucs available about mid to late April, so if you are interested drop me an email.  We will have a limited quantity as I want to keep most for myself and build back our inventory after such a dismal summer last year.  If all goes well, I will be purchasing my queens from Steve Taber @ Honey Bee Genetics, I really like his bees, especially his Russians.  Last spring was such a bust trying to get queens from Russell Apiaries, don't think I will ever use them again.

Anyway, I am such a terrible photo taker, I always hope to fill this blog with lots of photos, but then the opportunity passes and I never even got my camera out.......Sorry!

Rough Summer

This was a rough summer for beekeepers throughout the intermountain west.  Cold spring and drought conditions made for a very poor crop. 

We were able to put together about 25 nucs that we distributed to people all over Montana, but most went to people right here in Billings. 

I started my bees out in Fly Creek which is close to Hardin, MT.  The ranch there raises only dry farm alfalfa and with the drought, there was very little for my bees to eat.  The hives were building up nice and then we had about a two week cold snap and the bees could not fly.  They were raising tons of brood and since they could not forage in the cold and had very little honey storage, I lost several hives!!

Because of the drought, I moved my bees home about the middle of July and it was just in the nick of time!!  None of the hives had any surplus honey in them. 

Our honey harvest was minimul this year and our hive inventory was reduced to 9 hives because of the poor conditions.