I have just realised we haven't posted for over 2 months. Quite a lot has happened in that time. The weather eventually improved in late July and we were able to stop feeding. The bees became much happier and were out flying most days.
We heard that a lot of people had had trouble with queens not managing to mate successfully because of the weather and got increasingly worried about both our colonies and the nucleus, all of which had, or should have had, new queens. We eventually checked and found brood in both the hives, but not in the nucleus which we had moved into the nucleus box ready to go on holiday for a couple of weeks, prior to going to The Yarner Trust up the road. It didn't have any brood when we moved it, but we thought that might just have been because the queen hadn't started laying yet. The bees seemed fairly happy and were bringing in pollen.
There was another Beekeeping Course here on the weekend of 7th - 9th September and we decided to reunite the nucleus with the colony it came from, The Lizards and move the whole lot into the new hive with the periscope entrance. Luckily it was a fairly warm weekend and we did this successfully on the Saturday afternoon. At the same time we assessed stores in both our hives. We decided The Dolphins should be fine for the winter, but The Lizards might not be. We decided to offer them some 2:1 thick syrup in the contact feeder. They took several days to take this and so we haven't given them any more. There are some videos taken on the course on The Yarner Trust YouTube page here: http://www.youtube.com/user/YarnerTrust and here are some pictures.
We'll check both colonies in late January/early February and assess how they are doing for stores then. Hopefully they will both be OK, but it depends on the weather really. Last winter was so mild here that they were out flying a lot and so used up more energy and so more supplies.
It's been a very odd year for many beekeepers, who knows what the next 12 months will hold. This is our third year and still no honey to spare, oh well, maybe one day.
We've been hearing a lot about The Perone hive recently and will be interested in how the people trying them out in this country do. Here is a link to a video of them doing a talk at the Natural Beekeeping conference held in August:
http://www.biobees.com/naturalbeekeepingalliance/conference.php
On Sunday 23rd September we held the second meeting of Atlantic Coast Friends of the Bees here. There were 12 of us on a wet and windy afternoon. We spent most of the time drinking tea in the kitchen and talking Beekeeping. Unfortunately none of the people who came, apart from us, had any bees yet. We encouraged those who hadn't yet been on Phil's course to consider doing it next Spring. We talked about Perone Hives and the problems beekeepers had experienced this year, amongst other things and then ventured out to look at the hives. We also had a look at the new hive Jim has been making in the garage, with a periscope entrance that has a perspex front to it.
We heard that a lot of people had had trouble with queens not managing to mate successfully because of the weather and got increasingly worried about both our colonies and the nucleus, all of which had, or should have had, new queens. We eventually checked and found brood in both the hives, but not in the nucleus which we had moved into the nucleus box ready to go on holiday for a couple of weeks, prior to going to The Yarner Trust up the road. It didn't have any brood when we moved it, but we thought that might just have been because the queen hadn't started laying yet. The bees seemed fairly happy and were bringing in pollen.
There was another Beekeeping Course here on the weekend of 7th - 9th September and we decided to reunite the nucleus with the colony it came from, The Lizards and move the whole lot into the new hive with the periscope entrance. Luckily it was a fairly warm weekend and we did this successfully on the Saturday afternoon. At the same time we assessed stores in both our hives. We decided The Dolphins should be fine for the winter, but The Lizards might not be. We decided to offer them some 2:1 thick syrup in the contact feeder. They took several days to take this and so we haven't given them any more. There are some videos taken on the course on The Yarner Trust YouTube page here: http://www.youtube.com/user/YarnerTrust and here are some pictures.
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| Phil looking through the Lizard Hive |
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| Looking into the hive |
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| Lovely new comb with honey at the top |
We'll check both colonies in late January/early February and assess how they are doing for stores then. Hopefully they will both be OK, but it depends on the weather really. Last winter was so mild here that they were out flying a lot and so used up more energy and so more supplies.
It's been a very odd year for many beekeepers, who knows what the next 12 months will hold. This is our third year and still no honey to spare, oh well, maybe one day.
We've been hearing a lot about The Perone hive recently and will be interested in how the people trying them out in this country do. Here is a link to a video of them doing a talk at the Natural Beekeeping conference held in August:
http://www.biobees.com/naturalbeekeepingalliance/conference.php
On Sunday 23rd September we held the second meeting of Atlantic Coast Friends of the Bees here. There were 12 of us on a wet and windy afternoon. We spent most of the time drinking tea in the kitchen and talking Beekeeping. Unfortunately none of the people who came, apart from us, had any bees yet. We encouraged those who hadn't yet been on Phil's course to consider doing it next Spring. We talked about Perone Hives and the problems beekeepers had experienced this year, amongst other things and then ventured out to look at the hives. We also had a look at the new hive Jim has been making in the garage, with a periscope entrance that has a perspex front to it.
