I've caught so many new bees in the past few days I don't even know where to begin! One extraction was in a very old steel drum - the drum was old enough that I could cut through it with tin-snips and it had nothing bee-toxic in it. The house owners said the property was unoccupied for more than a decade. The colony was absolutely huge and overflowing with honey.
The other big extraction that I did this past week was in an old cabinet. It, too, was overflowing with honey, and the colony was about 8 years old. I'm still unsure if I got the queen from either of these hives; there were simply too many bees to find her. I'll have to wait a week or so for them to calm down in their boxes before I can do a proper check. Both colonies have brood of all ages though, so if the queen is dead, they can probably raise a new one.
I'll be selling the honey at market in a couple of weeks, once I get it all jarred up. Both honeys taste amazing - complex, rich flavours, which makes sense given that both were relatively close to large areas of gum trees. Wild honey like this will be a very limited item!
Hey, we should pull out our Nintendo 64! I think it's in the old cabinet on the porch...
This is not a barrel of monkeys.
Come on bees, go into the box.