I've shown some pictures of the beehive in previous posts. A friend at work started beekeeping 4-5 years ago and a little more than a year ago I decided to give it a try. I thought it would be cool to have a little honey for cooking, oatmeal, etc, and to help pollinate the garden. A new hive needs about a year to get established and evidently our area is bee friendly. The bees start out in March getting pollen and nectar from Maple trees, then move to holly and in late April the tulip poplar bloom, which provide a huge amount of nectar. Our area is covered in all of these sources of nectar and pollen. Last week I pulled a total of 8 frames of honey from the hive and my friend Steve Howard used his extractor to get the honey. The total was 3.5 gal of honey and I still have about 10 frames left to extract later. As indicated earlier, strawberry shortcake with honey instead of white sugar was heavenly.
