2007 - The year I dreamed I'd become a Honey Baron

Again the dream is crushed! We had the warmest winter ever, the bees were flying all winter, ate all their honey stores by January, and I began dumping sugar feed to them until the spring blooms opened.

Eager to become the baron that I deserve to be, I expanded my apiary from four to six hives. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!!

Just as the blossoms began to open, we had a record cold freeze at the end of April and all the blooms froze, plus most of the foliage on my bushes and trees. Then the drought began. Now in December, we are almost 17 inches short of rain for the year. I'm dumping sugar feed to the bees again to keep them alive this winter.

On the left are two new hives stacked on one another and facing opposite directions. This brings my hive count to six. On the right is three year old hive cooling off during the heat wave and drought this summer.

Here are the hives at the end of the year. One hive failed and left me with 5. I used all the honey that the established hives made to feed the new hives this winter. Maybe that will reduce my sugar purchases. Because of my repeated purchases of 40 - 50 pounds of sugar at a time, the folks at the grocery store are starting to look at me and suspect I may be a moonshiner. If they only knew, moonshiners make money, I just throw mine away on a dream.