Peach Mead With a Good Color

Our last batch of mead for the year. The wife says it’s not a sweet wine, a little dry but tastes peachy. High on the alcohol content at 12%. We will get it right in 2018!

I was supposed to “rack” (siphon the mead to another container) 30 days after the last racking. It looked like the yeast had stopped working only after a few days. So, I was advised to take the wine off the fruit. Still a little cloudy and smells like alcohol. That’s all I can tell you!

Peach, Blackberry and Blueberry Mead. Fermentation Halted?

Mead Racked Back Into Sanitized Containers

No help from Kola!

Two gallons for starters

Freddie Mercury was the only hive to produce enough honey to share. We decided to make some mead or honey wine. Since I have never had a drink of alcohol, I reserve all taste testing to my wife. She’s happy to help!

Thank you Freddie Mercury of Queen/ Queen Freddie, for being the only hive to produce any kind of honey this year.

Just enough to bee creative and leave enough for Freddie to make it through the Winter!

This is Queen Angela. I don’t know what happened to her. In my previous posts, Queen Angela was a captured swarm, my first one.

This was a pretty large swarm, I thought. Talking to the experts I’ve learned a few things could have gone wrong. Queen Angela, since she is prone to swarm, may have swarmed again. She could be a virgin queen and not laying fertile eggs. I don’t think that’s the cause because a bee  was laying eggs when I placed the frames in the new hive.  She could have died off or been eaten during a mating flight. Whatever the cause, this is the result. Weakly populated frames:

Another suggested cause is these plastic frames, Black in color. I tried these because the Black background makes it easier to see the eggs. I just don’t think they like the plastic. My next move is to (try) combine Queen Angela’s hive with Queen Victoria. God save her!

Queen Angela

Meet Queen Angela, named after my oldest sister. That’s her. On the end furthest away. The one with the least amount of bees. Mean. Just like my sister. Queen Angela!

Ordinance NO. 17-96

Delta TWP Chicken Raising and Beekeeping ordinance passed 6-0! Beekeeping is allowed in residential areas with some minor restrictions to the number of hives allowed. Looks like I can have 2-4 hives. Last year, I spoke at the meeting in favor of the ordinance. I already have my hive trap in place!

A Nuc box is box that hold a nucleus colony, like a queen and about 1000 bees. Beekeepers use these for catching swarms or removing extra bees from an overcrowded colony. I don’t have extra bees in my hives but I did recently catch a swarm. If I catch another one, I’ll use this Nuc to hold the swarm to either replace a weak hive ( I have one of those) or start over. Besides, Nucs look really cool and a lot easier to make than a full hive. I painted mine today. Five frames ready to go!