Any beekeepers updates?

[Nicos]

I was chatting to my daughter and she’s just taken the last of her honey and I was wondering , after such a wet summer how everyone’s honey production has been this year compared to previous years?

[seasprout]

My update: done my last inspection of the year, told off by mentor for doing so.

found condensation under roof, so have added insulation. 2 wet supers put on by mentor for cleaning are rammed full of Ivy stores. Weighs a tonne.

bees still bringing in by nectar on their pollen pants. Drones all gone.

hoping for forgiving winter.

[mothhawk]

I put a mouseguard on my cedar hive at the beginning of last week, it's on double brood boxes so in late winter as the bees move up, the entrance one storey below is not well defended. The poly hive entrance is too narrow for mice to get in. Both hives are rammed with ivy honey, it's been a really good year for ivy flowers.

At the end of September I took off the 2" ekes I'd put on both hives to make room for treatment trays (to kill the mites bees get), and both hives had built comb all across the empty space and filled it with ivy honey. I tasted some.....yuck! It tastes exactly like the flowers smell, not nice at all.

That's it now until they need another mite treatment at the beginning of the new year.

Didn't get so much honey this year, but that's OK. Most of what they made in early spring was eaten during late spring and early summer when the lack of rain meant flowers were not producing very much nectar, while at the same time the hives were expanding rapidly as the queens came into full lay, using up supplies.

[mothhawk]

Shame your 2 supers are on top, SS. It's a bit late to be mucking about nadiring them,and it's a pain when you can't get them off early enough in spring to prevent the queen laying in them and the workers filling empty cells with pollen.

I try to keep my super combs clean of pollen and brood, though I don't always succeed! I found this year that the best way to clean wet supers was to pop them on an empty hive. The bees soon find them and clean them out, with no bother. Six years in and still learning!

[Nicos]

How are your bees coping with this really cold spell?

[mrsbusy]

Hi - thought I would respond to the question 'any updates?'
Along with other beekeepers I have had a dead out just recently. When I took the hive apart there was alot of honey. It looks like the colony was queenless. My other hive was doing ok but it has been very quiet and I suspect it too has died out - time will tell.
The very wet weather followed by cold spells then warm then cold has been a nightmare for the bees even though they are sheltered and well insulated.

[Nicos]

Oh gosh, I hope your second hive is ok. Not good news

I don’t really know much about bees….are you able to buy in a young queen bee ?…how does the hive recover from that…or is it a matter of starting afresh?

Thanks for your update…it does make you wonder how the wild bees are faring too ….
Apart from providing loads of early flowers in our gardens/ allotments, and not using pesticides, is there anything more we can do to help them out ?

[mothhawk]

Sorry you've lost your bees Mrs Busy.

Both my hives are thriving, plenty of bees, at least there were in mid February, not checked them since. I had given one hive a kilo of fondant at the start of January, but they hadn't touched it and still had stores, so I took it off last month. They are in a very sheltered spot and always seem to get plenty of early nectar, I'm not sure what from, could be trees as there are several spinneys and an ancient churchyard nearby with quite a mix of trees, plus plenty of pollen from goat willow and hazel.

[mrsbusy]

Oh gosh, I hope your second hive is ok. Not good news

I don’t really know much about bees….are you able to buy in a young queen bee ?…how does the hive recover from that…or is it a matter of starting afresh?

Thanks for your update…it does make you wonder how the wild bees are faring too ….
Apart from providing loads of early flowers in our gardens/ allotments, and not using pesticides, is there anything more we can do to help them out ?

‘no mow May’
- grow as much from seed as possible/ swop with friends. Literally all plants you buy have a history of pesticides on
read David Goulson Silent Earth.

I will re populate my hive in the Spring with a swarm. I belong to a natural beekeeping group and we help each other out if we have empty hives. We.have discussed what might have improved winter survival and I have a couple of things to try. One theory is that November was so consistently wet that the bees couldn't get rid of all the moisture in the hive and they just succumbed to the damp, then the cold. There was noticeable 'wet' at the hive entrance which never seemed to dry.
Wild bees will be in holes in trees probably very well insulated.
I now have 12 kg of honey from the dead out - it's the first time I have had honey as I have always left it for the bees. I'm going on a one day mead making course next week!

[seasprout]

My Bees made it through the winter, but I’m worried about varroa, I’ve done 2 Oxalic Acid Sublimation Treatments since Christmas, but I don’t think either were as effective as it should have been. There were no other treatments available to me due to the cold.

This is still my first year Beekeeping so still lots to learn.
I'm going to the British Bee Keepers Conference in early April, but in the next fortnight I’m going on my Covid lockdown delayed New York trip, so I’d actually like it to stay cool and keep the Bees quiet until I get back for first inspection.

[mothhawk]

I used to worry a lot about varroa when I first started beekeeping, but now i just do the standard treatments, thymol in late summer, oxalic at the turn of the year, maybe once more in Spring. the bees never seem overburdened, and thrive. you'll never get rid of all varroa, because bees can pick it up wherever other bees have been, plus from drones from other hives that sneak in and make themselves at home to wait for new queens.

I generally put a super on at the end of March - I'd rather be too early than too late, I like them to have plenty of room.

[mothhawk]

I haven't been able to get to my bees for a while for various reasons, and checking them today, I find both hives have sealed queen cells, so they have swarmed. Hope they cleared off into the woodland and not into anybody's chimneys! I removed all but 1 queen cell in each hive, so now I need to leave them be for a month.

[seasprout]

I did my first ever extraction this week.
1 super came to 8.77kg of honey.

love it.
might get another super off in a few weeks.