Spring seems to be here early this year, which as a big winter fan I'm a bit torn about. The bees on the on the other hand seem to like this warm early March day!
These two are a few years old. Both started from Nucs that took forever to build up. I requeened one and the other requeened its self, that finally kicked them into gear. They went into the winter pretty strong and from the looks of it are doing OK. The colony on the right was my best honey producer last year and also produced one of the swarms below.
These are two swarms I caught last year. Believe it or not the one on the left was the later swarm (from the colony above). I pulled a small honey crop of them this fall while the one on the right just built up to a single deep before winter. I suspect there's a new queen in the singles future, I should have done it last fall but just didn't get around to it. They are flying in this picture, they're in the shade so they're weren't quite as many out and it's harder to see them.
The two older colonies in flight.
This colony is the oldest of my bunch. It started out as a package, quickly built up to two deeps and produced over 5 gallons of honey over two harvests in it's first year! Last year wasn't as good but the weather was just terrible in the late spring/early summer.
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