Product

Last weekend we were recommended to remove honey supers at the end of July, and again in September, at which point we commence to feed those four gallons of sugar syrup for wintering over.   Oh, dear:   I am far more fond of the fall honeys than the summer honeys with the exception of buckwheat.    Oh, well:   If all 100,000 or so of us get through this first year in robust good health (with the exception of those of us who have died in the line of duty from natural causes) all of us (including those recently emerged from the cell) can be very pleased with ourselves.   RE product, the easiest to make with a child, AKA the Young Bee-Keeper, is chunk honey, which makes a very pretty Christmas present in a shallow wide-mouth Mason jar, so my plan at the moment is to put up jars of chunk honey for the YB-K and me to divide for Christmas presents, and freeze them (to prevent chrystalization).   There will be a little bit of wax for candles, and I have a mold; we can make a candle or two.    Six weeks or so later, if all goes well, we'll have another harvest, and if we're all clear for "product" for Christmas, we can decide what to do next; maybe we will extract?   First year bees may produce more honey for us, if they must manage only one brood box (as at Guelph) instead of two (as in all my books and previous incarnations; I will have to ask at the OBA seminar in May what are the advantages of a single brood box?).