No, we didn’t do the Biggest Small Town Parade and we didn’t watch fireworks down at Starcke Park. We have done those things plenty during Mark’s tenure with the City of Seguin. No, instead we picked up David in Marion and headed to the JW Marriott yard to pull supers. Had a really great time with Ryan, Bethany and Brett as usual. They helped up pull supers that were ready for harvesting and continued learning about beekeeping and their hives there at the resort. The bees did fine this year and built up strong enough to produce a decent amount of honey. We used Bee Robber to push the bees out of the supers and I’m always fascinated with the speed at which they exit the hive. Pretty cool so I shot a brief video at our second stop – Rattlesnake yard. Meanwhile, here’s a shot of Ryan and Brett taking a turn at examining the bees at the entrance.
We got Brett to run his hands through the bunch – no stings. Good job, Brett!
Next it was back towards Marion and a pit stop (no pun intended) at the Rattlesnake yard to pick up quite a load of what ended up being my favorite honey – MESQUITE. The reason I say it that way is because we took the supers home and started extracting. After we got through with David’s honey supers, we hit Rattlesnake and then did a taste test after bottling a jar. I knew as soon as I tasted it that it was Mesquite. The men took several more tastes before concluding that it is predominantly Mesquite with a touch of Wildflower. Even better for my allergies. Excellent. We didn’t finish all the boxes on the fourth but we did make great progress. This evening Mark and I headed out there to do some more work after his long day as a library administrator in the midst of budget time. Doesn’t sound as fun as honey extraction if you ask me but I haven’t done the budget task so I may not be the best judge on this.
My reward for working late tonight was a taste of some of the most divine honey I have tasted this year – our first Bexar County Wildflower Honey. WOW. Mark’s reaction to the flavor was enough to get me to slip out of my glove to take a sample for myself and I am so glad I did. It was awesome! When we placed the hives at the Marriott, we told ourselves that we’d be happy if they all just survived. And if they made honey, that’d be bonus. But if they didn’t, we wouldn’t be disappointed. We just weren’t sure what they would feed on out there. Well, whatever it was, I hope it blooms again next year and that our little girls make even more. Every drop of this honey has already been sold to JW Marriott but it shows us that there is good honey to be made there in Bexar County…no telling where the next yard will be.
If you’d like to view the full set of JW Marriott photos, you can check our set on Flickr. There’s even a short video of our time there.
We have a Rattlesnake Bee Yard photo set as well and the short video of bees exiting the hive is in that set.
Leave a comment