I've produced about 160lb of honey so far this year. Best honey crop ever for me. This year, the hobby has taken up fare more time than any other year. Buying and putting together woodware, splitting, requeening, extracting.

I think this is about as big as I want to be. Maybe too big actually. May need to downsize.

This hive was really struggling this year after I committed a major mistake. Leaving the queen excluder on over the winter (doesn't allow the cluster to move up into the honey). But it has since been requeened and is thriving.

Just curious to hear what 30 straight days of 100+ degree weather does to bee colonies?

this hive is now doing great. Requeened, moved up the hill. Fully recovered. I have harvested about 150lb of honey so far this year.

Bees do need to maintain the temperatures of their hives. If they overheat, the comb can melt and that is a disaster. So there are bees that actually use their wings and help ventilate the hive to regulate the temperature.

Of course, bees need water, so they have to have a water source. There are still local creeks and swimming pools with water, in the city, so they are fine in that regard.

Summers are tough in general for bees, it is a season of dearth. There is a spring and a fall flow of nectar. So generally speaking not much honey is made in the summer. I suspect this summer is particularly tough. However looking at my hives in my backyard, the populations look to be high and they appear to be doing fine.

One of my very small hives at my friend's house died at the end of last fall, when its feeder led to robbing (and killing). The other small hive at his house survived.

Four hives at my house. That are doing well. I'm expecting a banner year in terms of honey production. Some good rains in the spring. Now I need some good sunny weather. Every year I have been doubling my honey production, but I don't think I will get to 300lb, LOL. I kinda hope not.

I am certain you can get somebody to take it off your hands.

new extractor going into effect this weekend. YESSHHHH....

new extractor worked well.

Down year for honey last year. Got a bit less than the year before despite more hives.

But I'm hopeful this will be a better year. I am at 5 hives, 4 of which should produce honey. The 5th I am not sure about, it is weak. I do plan to do at least one split, which will take me to 6 hives.

Ain't a cheap hobby...

Did the split last week. Essentially I take one hive and split it up into two hives. The queen remains in one hive. And in the queenless hive, they raise a new queen.

In this case, I didn't know which hive had the queen. But I made sure that both hives had eggs. Any egg has the potential to become a queen. This for example ensures that if a queen were to suddenly die, that the colony would not be doomed. The larva is fed royal jelly and this makes it develop into a queen. She pupates and the rest, and then flies into the sky, mates, comes back and lays eggs.

Of course the issue in that case is hoping you get some decent genetics from that drone she mated with in the sky. This is why that queen might need to be replaced with a commercially bought queen of known temperament and quality.