Reader, I know I got your hopes up for some honey. But I think our hopes may have flown off with the Amazon swarm.

Yesterday’s inspection shows that all honey production has ground to a halt in Amazons. Because they swarmed, the remaining Amazons aren’t drawing comb or storing honey until their new queen gets busy…and that’ll take a month or so. And by the time she gets busy, there won’t be much blooming. All of this is to say that we won’t get more honey this spring. Who knows about the fall…there’s often a fall honey flow, but not always. We didn’t have one last year.

Though Tomboys and Girls of Summer remain very healthy and very active, they aren’t drawing comb or storing honey in the honey supers. They’re loaded with brood about to be born, though, so if there’s a good fall honey flow, we may get some honey from them. In a few months. This is killing me.

To keep my mind off this disappointment, I think I’ll consider experimenting a little bit. I think I’ll try to take two frames of brood and a frame or two of honey from the deep brood boxes (I haven’t decided which combination of colonies to take this from) and form a new colony. That should be fun, and I’m sure to learn new stuff.

Here are Jay and Jackie who visited the hives with me yesterday. I rewarded their interest with a 5 oz. jar of honey. I hope they treasure it. I’m not giving any more to anyone until I harvest more. And that’s not looking great.