On a warm night

Last night I decided to go out and take some flash photos of some of our small beehives. Believe it or not, there is plenty of room inside the hive for expansion. I think the bees on the outside are the “field force” and just passing around nectar to concentrate the sugars and invert the sugar. First light in the morning, they take off for foraging and the bees outside the hive are minimal. Right now is the middle of summer heat and dearth here and many bees are gathering water to help cool the hives using evaporative cooling. We got about 3 gallons of good honey from a cutout in Bryan, Texas, this past Saturday and are processing that honey and comb now. When the weather cools off in another month or so, flowers will start blooming again and there should be another nectar flow. That will help them get enough stores to make it through the winter.