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Work continues in both the apiary and the workshop.

We’ve had no long cold spell again this winter. Maybe climate change means they are a thing of the past?

Never-the-less oxalic acid treatment had to be done, brood or no brood. Total drop varied from 570 down to 70 which I didn’t think was too bad. There was still a small natural drop the following week so I’ve followed up with an Apivar treatment.

Weeks of dull cloudy and cold weather has kept the bees confined to hive but a morning sunshine early in the month brought them out. It wasn’t just cleansing flights either. The aroma of the winter honeysuckle was hanging like a cloud around the shrub and the girls were foraging madly. I have at long last succeeded in getting some winter aconite to grow in the damson copse and their gloriously yellow blooms were a real magnet. No aconite in the spinney yet which is a real disappointment

Honeybees working the aconite

The Dartington Long-hive continues (unapace) to grow steadily. I have tried to do a little each day through the winter. The brood box is now finished, the roof is assembled and it is all ready for proofing. Honeyboxes and insulated dummy-boards can be gradually completed throughout the spring. The former are of course not vital as I can always use conventional supers if necessary.

The honey DNA testing results have come back from the CEH (Centre for Ecology and Hydrology). Some results were as expected but there were some surprises as well. The three varieties of open-pollenated rape were the main leaders in the spring and they showed up quite distinctly. The surprise was a noticeable content of sycamore. The spinney, which is only a third of an acre, consists of sycamore and elm 50:50 about twenty five years old but already yielding well. Unfortunately sycamore is an alien species and everyone I’ve consulted about the spinney’s future has said “You can get those out!”. We’ll see.

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In addition to giving my smoker a thorough clean-out I shall also be going through the cupboards in the bee-shed and clearing things which haven’t been used for years.

In addition I’ve decided to return to a long-waiting project. This autumn, Saffron Walden Beekeepers had a visiting speaker who talked about different hive designs. One in particular which he was recommending was a Dartington Long Hive.

Some years ago, when Saffron Walden division organised the Essex Beekeepers conference we had Robin Dartington as one of our visiting speakers and he demonstrated how to use his new hive to the most advantage. I was very impressed and bought all his publications. I followed this with a visit to his apiary where we spent half a day working his hives.

Robin Dartington inspecting a colony in a long hive

I bought some of the wood to make my own hive but then the bee season started and it got shelved. I have now resurrected all the pieces from the back of the bee-shed and hope the workshop won’t be too cold to enable me to push the project further along. As it is now fifteen years since I started the project, I’ve accumulated a lot of off-cuts in various sizes so hopefully I will be able to finish using recycled wood.

Cut timber for a Dartington Long Hive

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That’s it for another year.

The harvest was just sufficient to meet my annual needs as it passed my target by a mere 5kg. I still have a super of comb to cut but that is only about half full and much of that not really suitable for the size of the cutter. However, we’ll see.

All the honey in the supers has been extracted and brood-box frames have been moved around to ensure that all colonies have sufficient stores until I give them their winter feed.

Having extracted the honey, I replaced the supers of wet frames above an empty box with the crown board feed-hole cracked open. Three supers a day and they soon had them all licked clean and dry. The excitement started some potential robbing so the affected hives were fitted with an entrance block with a one-bee-width hole; much easier to defend.

The girls have been plagued with CBPV (Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus) this year and I fear that several colonies wont make it through the winter. I have united colonies down to a total of ten in number rather than the usual eight just to be on the safe side.

Varroa-drop figures are still being collected. Hive 9 became frighteningly high so on Stuart Roweth’s advice I have increased the number of Beegyms to three. There is now a distinct pattern of varroa drop beneath these.

Feeding starts soon so I’d better buy my sugar for a 2:1 feed.

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We had some rape honey this year albeit only a small amount but rape honey never-the-less. With judicious blending and seeding this could give a year’s supply of creamed honey.

Seeding? You warm and clear a tub of honey and then when it’s cool you add 10% of a creamed honey which has a nice smooth consistency. Provided the cleared honey would have eventually crystalised this will now do so at a much faster rate and with the same consistency as the seeding material.

All bar two of my 2018 queened colonies needed artificial swarming due probably to the weather. These were successfully completed but it did mean several under-strength colonies and a lot of hives. Combine this with the swarms I’d had to take and I was approaching my hive-insurance limit.

At least four virgin queens failed to return from mating flights. I don’t know why I should be so prone to this problem. Any ideas? Inserting test frames and allowing them to develop emergency queens did allow a temporary solution. Not the best, admittedly, but a later supersedure would then correct the problem.

The June gap was much more noticeable this year and spanned the entire month. I can measure it by the amount of bee activity at the pond. In the absence of nectar to evaporate down, the colonies need water as a substitute liquid for their air conditioning.

It is now the end of the month and the swarm colonies are being united down to a sensible number before an end of season unite with my selected queen colonies. Two of them had somehow rendered themselves queenless so a quick test frame and they were united with the colony alongside. This was done with the newspaper method to mask the colony odour as they nibbled through.

Uniting two colonies using the newspaper method

Hive number 6 is without doubt the best producing this year. No artificial swarm was needed the the queen continued with copious laying. As I write, I have already extracted 5½ supers and there is still much to come

Hive 6 with six supers

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Six of my colonies had 2018 queens and the remaining two were older. The oldest was marked white as a 2015 queen but she was still the most prolific layer producing some very enthusiastic workers. Out of all of these it was the younger queens which started making swarm cells along the bottoms of the central frames. Their first attempts were cut away to try and discourage them but in the end I had to perform some Pagden artificial swarms and make up nucleus colonies with the better queen cells. Within a matter of days the number of hives grew from single figures to rapidly approaching twenty.

We had a visit from Greg Smith of the Hill Street Chocolatiers who wanted to see and photograph the little ladies producing the delicious filling for some of their extra special chocolates.

The hornet traps don’t seem to have been very effective. I removed the tin can holding the apple juice as the ascorbic acid effected the tin-plate producing a most unpleasant odour. Straight juice in the plastic bait holder was not very effective as I watched a queen wasp gathering nest material from a wooden door right alongside. I’ll take them down now and clean them out.

Weekly inspections continued in earnest as the honey harvest mounted throughout the month. Fortunately the open-pollenated oil-seed-rape was much better than the hybrid variety and for the first time if three years I now have some rape honey. I also have about ten supers of partially crystallised honey but these are being washed out one by one as I have the hose-pipe on to water the garden.

I have been called to several swarms, one of which was in the grounds of Wimbish Primary School so we had an impromptu outdoor lesson on honeybees and how to collect a swarm. A lesson I’m sure they’ll remember for a long time.

Other swarms have been collected in Saffron Walden, Debden, Camps End, and one lucky one which came from elsewhere but chose to hang up in the apiary right alongside its new home.

  • 7 May Camp End
  • 17 May Hilltop Lane
  • 18 May Incoming swarm
  • 21 May Wimbish School
  • 31 May Church Lane Debden

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Six of the hives have now been spring-cleaned which puts me way ahead of last year. Several new frames of foundation were introduced and several 2018 queens clipped and marked.

Hive 2 is a disappointment as the queen was a late hatching in 2018 and failed to mate successfully. Although she is laying, she is a poor little specimen, hardly bigger than a worker and is trying valiantly to keep the colony going. Deformed Wing Virus is also clearly visible. There are four little hand-size patches of brood and a small quantity of bees so I’ll move them into a nucleus hive and keep them going until I can re-queen with a better specimen. This was one of the beegym hives so the gyms have now been moved to hive three which is of a more respectable size.

On the 13th March a most enjoyable evening was held at Thaxted Day Centre when we had a DIY session on making your own Asian Hornet trap. Following my demonstration, members of Saffron Walden Beekeepers each used plastic bottles and coat hangers to manufacture their own and then went home proudly carrying their evening’s efforts. My two traps are now baited with home-pressed apple juice with one hanging in the apiary and the other by the bee shed.

  • Deryck demonstrating trap construction
  • Cutting the bottles
  • Cutting the plastic roofs
  • Cutting and inserting the wire coat-hangers
  • Barbara melting the holes
  • Malcolm proudly displays his finished trap

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We had one freak week in February when the temperature was high enough to start spring cleaning. If you can do gardening in your shirtsleeves then it’s warm enough to open a hive.

Two hives were completed, being given a cleaned and sanitized brood box, floor and crown board. The amount of brood unfortunately was not as much as I would have expected given the mildness of the winter. Both hives only had four patches of brood; one on either side of the two central frames. The weather turned chilly again so the other colonies will have to wait. Although there was still plenty of stores, most of it had crystallized so for the first time ever I’ve had to offer them fondant. Not all have taken it down as there is plenty of water around for them to use the crystallized. In addition there has also been plenty of fresh forage. The large ornamental plum has been positively alive with workers when it’s had the sun on it and the white bullace was also worked vigorously when that was in flower

Plum tree in flower

Again, oxalic acid treatment was not as effective as I wished so I’ve had to follow it up with Apivar. Weekly counts of varroa drop show the numbers now down into single figures but hopefully I’ll get six of the hives down to continuous zero before the Apivar has to come out.

Only six of the hives have the chemical treatment as hives 1 and 2 are running another experiment with Beegyms. Stuart Roweth found better results by placing the gyms above the brood frames so I’ve placed two gyms in an eke above the brood in these hives. I’ll let you know the figures as they progress

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Winter in the apiary said that one job seemed to simply make another and how true this has been. My old stainless steel smoker which has been going for decades decided to give up the ghost yet again. About six years ago the hinge on the lid rusted through (Yes. A mild steel hinge on a stainless smoker) so I repaired it by making a replica. That eventually gave up so I’ve made a much stronger one but in stainless steel from my scrap metal box. This is much harder to work than mild steel but makes a more robust job. I also found two copper bifurcated rivets and two pop rivets to complete the task.

Stuart Roweth has said he would like me to continue trialing his Beegyms but this time placing two of them above the brood frames. Although my hives are on top-space there isn’t quite enough room so I’m having to make some shallow ekes. The circular saw needed to rip some 12mm battens decided it had had enough, so yet again, one job generates another. I’ve bought a new blade, cleaned and polished the anvil-slides in the blade raise and lower mechanism and adjusted the bevel gears.

12mm ekes
Beegyms from http://www.vita-europe.com and http://www.thorne.co.uk

Two of these Beegyms will be placed above the brood frames when I do the first spring-cleans on hives 1 & 2.

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Oxalic acid in a sugar solution is dribbled between the frames over the bees as a varroa miticide when the brood is at its least, i.e. after a long cold spell. Whilst it can kill the mites on the bees or in open brood cells it can’t touch those behind a brood cell capping. A writer in BBKA News claimed that brood frames could be removed even in mid-winter, any cappings perforated and then the frames replaced prior to the oxalic acid treatment.

We hadn’t had a long cold spell but it’s a matter of compromise so I chose a day to suit me best. It was a lovely day; 9°C and the sun was shining. Thank goodness I was in full armour. Whilst it was too cold for the bees to be flying naturally, they really went for it, and me; when I took the decision to break the cluster out of their hands and made the decision for them. Having started however, I decided to press on and found three small patches of brood on two frames which I duly perforated with my uncapping fork before re-assembling the hive.

Lesson learned, the other seven hives were just given a quick 5ml of oxalic acid between the frames and the crown-boards replaced.

Unbeknown to me however, my back and hat had collected a huge number of hangers-on; the disadvantage of being a solo beekeeper. Having completed the work, as I disrobed and pulled my jacket over my head the bees on the back decided that my now bare face was a good target for revenge. Oh well, I suppose it helps to build up sting resistance early in the season.

One job leads to another they say.

I’ve discovered that my smoker needs some serious reconditioning as the hinge is worn and badly distorted and the interior is really caked up; a workshop job for a wet day.

No netting has been needed so far this year as there’s been no permafrost..

Stuart Roweth, inventor of note (and the Beegym) has sent me the mite-drop statistics for some of his hives through 1918. Some hives had two and even three Beegyms both above and below the frames and the results were really impressive. Rather than having just one gym on the floor of several hives I’ll try putting several in a few hives, above and below the brood and see what the figures are like.

The winter honeysuckle has flowered extremely well this year and the bees have been making good use of it on the many flying days.

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Apple weekend at Audley End House was once again a terrific two days. Unfortunately the Sunday weather was appalling and by lunchtime the footfall had reached the staggering total of 150; Saturday’s total was 1500. We had an excellent team of helpers on both days and as usual the observation hive proved a great attraction.

Sally explains foundation and drawing of comb to an enthralled audience

Back in the apiary the number of hives has been united down to the usual over-wintering eight. The last three were each 5-frame nucs, one of which was the observation hived used at Audley End.

Amongst the 15 frames were several with yellow spacers, indicating old frames to be rendered, so these were removed. All the others with bees were given a spray unite. This was probably not necessary as I was uniting three colonies but I thought it best to be cautious. Colony smell must be smothered to unite two colonies but with three colonies they can’t sort out who the intruders are and peacefully accept their new foster sisters.  The spray was a very dilute sugar solution and a drop of oil of lavendre.

One barren queen was removed and the other two left to fight it out as I couldn’t choose which was the better. They are all now in hive 6 and the feeder is fitted.

  1. All hives now have an Ashforth feeder and all the feed is ready. Most of it this winter is recycled honey with just a small amount of sugar solution to help prevent crystallising.Inspections have been reduced in the last part of the season as little could be done. All I needed to do was monitor the varroa drops. This has stayed sufficiently low for treatment to wait until the mid-winter oxalic acid.
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