Well, it’s been a tremendously busy year in beekeeping. We started 2015 with six hives, and will be concluding with as many as twenty, scattered in two apiaries between Pinellas and Gilchrist counties. But, with the approach of fall, it’s about time for late-season splits ahead of next year and turning attention to stores across which come closest to what Florida could describe as winter.
As far as summer goes, this was a productive, albeit flooded one. It appears that the intense rainfall which left much of Tampa stranded in July has kicked off a subsequent honeyflow, and moved the brazillian pepper flow ahead of schedule. Currently there’s one young split in the Pinellas apiary, and all of the other hives are in a near spring-like frenzy of activity. We pulled just a tad over twenty gallons from six of these hives in July, so all that’s left is the build up of stores to get them through the winter. If conditions continue as they have been, and we get a relatively rainy fall, we’re going to see a good chance of either a late-season crop, or something early in the spring.
Raptors Roost Farm 