Just weighing in on the size of the current crop.... here in Northern
Illinois my crop is excellent this year.  It has been strange weather... a
very dry spring followed by a wetter, cool summer.  The rains were of the
shower variety and whether you got rain or not depended on which side of the
road you lived on.  But for the bees, this seems to have worked well.

On average, my colonies will do excellent.  I only extract once a year - in
about two weeks.  At this point I have some colonies with three (medium)
supers - about 100 pounds of surplus - and some with as many as seven
supers - over 200 pounds.  I have taken up bracing some of the taller ones.
My average has been around 100 pounds per hive over the last 10 year.  I
would expect to have over a 150 pound average this year.  The bee traffic to
and from the hives is amazing.

As I write, the bees are working like crazy.  Thistles are just about done,
but Menarda and Purple Cone Flower  are out in full force.  The tall and
Dutch clovers are doing well and golden rod is just about to start.  A
number of alphalfa fields are late in being cut because of the rain showers
lately.  The bees are enjoying the blooms there, too.

I wish I could engineer each summer to be like this one.  I would add a few
hundred more hives (to my twenty) and become a rich man.  Ulee's gold?

Larry Krengel
Marengo, IL

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