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Tag: forage

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What a mixed spring and summer. The poor bees didn’t know what was happening. We had a totally dry glorious April but then an appalling May.

No rain means no nectar.

Cold and wet in May means no foraging

Like everyone else I spoke to, every hive made swarming preparations. Fortunately all bar one was able to be prevented. This did mean however that I had a preponderance of nucleus hives with one year old queens and lots of production colonies waiting for virgin queens to mate. Mating seems to become more problematical year on year. Four queens failed to return and one is already becoming a drone-layer.

Also, the number of swarm calls I took meant that I had three swarm hives on the go, being added to with each successive swarm.

No oil-seed rape was within flying distance and at the other end of the season there was no borage or echium. The harvest was well below my target and consisted of a veritable assortment of forage.

Saffron Walden Beekeepers ran some General Husbandry training on Zoom where I did a talk or two and I also had one beginner in the apiary as an apprentice. I did three garden meetings which constituted a new record as none of them were rained off.

The wet supers are been licked clean and the last colony-unite is in position. I’ve been given a bundle of past Financial Times which I think are the only paper left in broadsheet format; ideal for paper-unites and padding between winter-stored supers.

175 acres of Buck wheat has been drilled between the rape which is just over the hedge. I was hoping for a crop from this but it was too thin on the ground and the ivy was strongly calling.

Feeding this year will be a mix of Apikel and the honey-drainings from the nine extraction days.

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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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