Goldenrod honey flow

The goldenrod started blooming this week and the bees have been busy gathering the last major honey flow of the year.

There is lots of goldenrod blooming right around my hives as well as all over the countryside.  We have finally had some rain to bring it on so hope there's some nectar there to add to their stores.

I took a look in the top honey super on my strong South hive.  This is the sixth medium box on this rather tall hive.  Here is the second frame from the outside which shows lots of liquid nectar being stored.

This is one of the middle frames of that box showing some honey that has now been capped.

Here is a frame full of capped honey from my weaker North hive.   I had to get into the fourth box to find this, as the fifth box is still early empty of any wax.

Here's a middle frame out of the top brood box (3d box from the bottom of the hive).  I think this was a frame where I thought I saw eggs in my inspection last week.  The mass of capped brood tells me I was right.  There is honey on both ends.

Another middle frame with beautiful pattern of capped brood and a little honey capped on both ends.  The new queen in this hive seems to be going strong.

Something is robbing my grapes as can be seen here.  These are Concords and they are ripe now.  I'm not doing anything with them this year, but next year I will need to give them some protection from varmints.  From the pattern of the taking, and from some vines being pulled down from the wire, I think this was possums or raccoons.

The Jonathan apples are ripe, and I picked several to make a pie.  I don't know why the animals aren't grabbing these too, but I'm glad they aren't.

The ornamental grass next to the garden gate is tasseling.