Bee Season [UPDATED WITH PHOTOS]

Truth be told, with the exception of winter, it's always bee season.  By this I mean that for a beekeeper (amateur or otherwise) there is always something to be done to help the bees do what they want to do naturally.   For the most part that means rearranging the frames inside the hives to make it more convenient for the queen to lay her eggs... and creating more space for the workers to store the nectar that will become the honey.

In fact, even winter is bee season around here because frames and hives need to be built and/or repaired.

But right now is a really busy time with my bees because we are just coming off a big bloom of several different kinds of flowers here in Gush Etzion and the bees should be almost out of room to store nectar and honey.  So instead of doing a photo Friday today Gilad and I are going to be out rearranging frames... adding another couple of honey supers...  and maybe even stealing a taste of comb honey for Shabbat.

Update:  OK, we didn't steal any honey, but Gilad and I did a good afternoon's work.

Here is my able assistant getting ready to help me open one of the hives:

Once a hive is opened we have to work gently but quickly so as to cause the minimum of disturbance to the bees.

This is a frame of newly capped honey.  Most of the frames look like this now.  But because there is still room for the bees to store more honey towards the bottom and edges of the frame, I'm going to wait a week or two before taking any of them out and extracting the honey:

Shabbat Shalom!