End of the Season

It's been a strange old year .... The weather certainly hasnt helped nor the amount of travelling that Ive done for the job but at the end of the day I've ended the season with more colonies than I was intending to and a great determination to do better next year.

I'll be taking 3 colonies through the winter of differing strengths and with different backgrounds.  Having taken an average colony to the heather in the New Forest on a whim I can now see the benefit both in terms of the produce of honey and the winter stores for the hive.

My hives will have a major refresh over the winter as I still have that pile of cedar in the shed. I also intend to make some new clearing boards with no moving parts as well as a couple of Snelgrove boards to be more proactive when dealing with colony growth and control as well as a whole host of brood bodies and supers.

Finally I really know when autumn is here when our Friday night beekeeping meetings kick in; I've also signed up for an introduction to Microscopy at Bath University and that will be a really good excuse to get some more toys.

Swarming ......

It has been some considerable time since I have been able to add to this blog but fear not - things have moved on at pace. The hive has come through the winter in fine fashion and much activity has been apparent through all of the variety of weather that we have all endured - the frustration of not being able to conduct a full inspection because of heavy rain and torrential wind must be felt across all apiaries.

Additionally I have expanded my colonies by taking on an apiary from a lady who needed to step back from beekeeping for medical reasons. Not only did I acquire a 14x12 deep national populated with a full house of very feisty bees but the site is on a farm with many fields of Oil Seed Rape so I will certainly need to up my game and make regular visits although the farm lane is currently flooded and in-passable which makes life pretty difficult.

So imagine my surprise in the pouring rain as I ventured to tidy up around my original hive when I saw a most impressive dripping wet swarm of bees clinging to a bush just 10 feet from the hive.  Never having seen a swarm before I had to learn fast although I did seek the assistance of the local beekeeper who originally donated my colony.  The bush was a prize bush and couldn't be hacked so much shaking and sue of smoke got sodden clumps of bees into cardboard boxes and then into my freshly acquired 14x12 Nuc hive later transferred to the farm apiary. When last visited they were doing great guns and drawing out the fresh foundation ... so that was 3 colonies when I had only expected to have 1 some 2 weeks earlier.

And today I just missed a swarm emerging from my original hive but was able to see it settle in a hedge just behind the house and now a dab hand at this collection game I swiftly dropped the colony into my new polystyrene Nuc hive which had literally just arrived. I was a little annoyed that I had missed the signs of swarming but the weather has been shocking this week and as such I've not been able to get near the hive on a dry day let alone search for queen cells and the like ...

So now I have 4 colonies; 3 on the farm and 1 at home still. It is going to be a busy summer.

Spring Excitement ...

Its been a strange old year so far; the bees were flying on Christmas Day and are currently spending more time out of the hive than in and plenty of pollen is being brought in. All good news and I have plenty of things to do this year. I'm planning to get a couple more hives running and I have been invited to look at a new site which sounds extremely promising !

I've not yet managed to get the now fully dry cedar out of the shed and into the workshop, I keep meaning to practice cutting dovetails to make my 14 x 12 brood boxes but time evades me. I'm also really keen to try out a Snelgrove board this year as the principle sounds extremely sound and should help with my anti-swarm strategy.