Greetings Everyone,

With temperatures heating up well into the upper 90'ies, it has slowed the production on Sasserfrass Hill down a bit. I am trying to keep the plants watered. The tomatoes and peppers are producing very nicely. The wildflowers in the garden are beautiful and after being staked they are standing up and showing their faces. We have the intense Georgia afternoon sun with no shade to help with the broiling heat. I bought umbrellas last year to help shade my girls. With summer fast approaching I think it is time to put the umbrellas up over the hives again. (My neighbor says it looks like a roadside stand when the umbrella go up.)

We have had a bit of a setback. On Saturday Rick and I went through seven of the hives, to check for queen cells and to check for brood and pests. To our disappointment we found four MORE hives with NO brood. Four hive with NO babies and no Queen. Remember we had to put three queens and brood from Mr. Charlies hives in last week. To find we have four more queen less hive is a big set back to us on Sasserfrass Hill. This will slow honey production down to a crawl.

Mr Charlie ordered more queens and we are going to pick them up from Wilbanks Apiaries in Claxton on Wednesday. I hope these queens are strong good layers, so we can make it through the summer and get busy making honey for Sasserfrass Hill. I am learning many new things everyday about the bees. This is a hard lesson but, a part of beekeeping.

I will keep you posted on our progress.

Bee Cool,

Deborah