Our bees thrived all summer long. We had a couple times when the heat softened the comb enough to cause it to break under the weight of the honey, but this was solved by opening up a couple more entries to help them cool the interior. We fed during our summer dearth, when the heat is such that few flowers bloom here. The colony grew, expanded to fill half the top bar hive box. This was perfect, so I left them alone when the fall bloom began for two weeks. When I returned to checking–we had a huge problem! By … Continue reading →