Waiting for the Fall Flow

Right now only a few random pepper trees and one lone eucalyptus is blooming in this area, so I've been feeding 1-1 sugar syrup for several weeks. My goal is to make sure the hives are full, so when the fall flow starts (around here, primarily eucalyptus) they'll store all the honey in the supers, and I'll get a bunch of nice, dark eucalyptus honey.

The flush for the euc's lasts through January, which takes us nicely into the early sage bloom, followed by hollyleaf cherry, among others. All of this, of course, presumes a modicum of rain in Jan/Feb. The hollyleaf cherry didn't even bloom at all this past year, due to the drought.

Predictions this winter are actually for an El Nino, a period of unusually heavy rain in the Southland which could potentially ruin February, (that's when they usually hit the hardest) but could also make for a very productive, albeit a little late, spring flow. The chaparral typically blooms like crazy very soon after any significant rain.

Now that every hive has been treated with Apiguard, I'll put some sticky boards out this weekend and see if we've decreased the population to tolerable levels. Stay tuned...