I tried something different this year with my supering. Usually I put on excluders when I add my first honey supers in the spring, or shortly thereafter. This year I didn't, and I immediately put on 2 supers just as dandelion started, and left the queen to roam freely giving the colonies an unlimited brood nest. Sure enough the queens moved up but as the summer proceeded and the supers were added to those that needed them, the bees pushed down and I only started putting in excluders if I happened upon the queen in my honey supers during casual inspections.
CBT - some had 2 and no more, some ended up with 4. No rhyme or reason to it.
neilsayers - I wholesale very little, pretty much to the Winery only and even that is slightly higher than regular wholesale around here. I am always scratching for honey in July when I am down to a couple cases at the market and I scrape what I can from hives to maintain a presence. Until I am staring at 1,000 lbs. or more of last years honey when I start extracting I see absolutely no need to wholesale anything out.
When I am at the market I remind myself how fortunate we are to be marketing a product that has no shelf life. I watch as how some vendors scramble at the end of the market to divest themselves of perishables and I feel badly for them. With the new booth I built I simply put everything into it at the end of the day and lock it up. All I need to do before the next market is restock it with what I have sold.
