A taste of honey!

Inspection day for both hives. I opened up Rocky first and found that the queen is, indeed, alive and well and laying eggs in the bottom super. Thank goodness.




The bees are storing pollen and honey in the top super. Those swarm bees are tush hogs!


What, you ask, is a "tush hog"? Well...my high school geometry teacher, Nick Hyder, was also the head football coach. (Quite honestly, I learned way more about football than geometry in that class.) Coach Nick had an endless supply of motivational sayings, like:
• "It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog."
• "If if's and but's were candy and nuts, we'd ALL have a Merry Christmas."
• "You are tomorrow what you eat today."
• "I never saw anybody O.D. on roast beef and green beans."
And then there was, "Be a tush hog, not a slop hog." Meaning, be a go-getter not a lollygagger.

The Hive A (still haven't decided on the name, but y'all submitted some great ideas so far) bees are tush hogs, too. They have moved up into the third super, but when I took that off today and looked down into the middle super, I liked what I saw. This super is being used for brood and for HONEY storage. Note the white-capped cells around the top and sides of this frame from Hive A — that's where the honey is stored.

When you're working with a hive tool and prying apart supers and frames, it's just about impossible not to get stuff on the blade. Today I got a small sample of the Hive A honey on the blade. It was a beautiful light amber color and tasted so sweet. I'm guessing it's mostly clover honey.

So, Coach Nick, although you're gone from this world, you are most certainly not forgotten. I'll honor your memory by being the best tush hog beekeeper I can be.