Blog Comments

  1. gavin's Avatar
    And there was me thinking I'd hit the big time with seven colonies on the heather this year! (One in Clova too.) Great to hear from you John.

    4am? No idea what that is!
  2. John M's Avatar
    Purely by co-incidence I logged into SBAi tonight and noticed Gavin was commenting on the heather. It is amazing how stories get about, both that this is a great heather season and that someone is a famous beekeeper!
    Just for the record my view is that the heather is looking stunning pretty well everywhere and in some locations there is a very good crop. We have around 100 colonies in two valleys just south of Broughton which are doing well/very well. We also have around 100 spread around Leadhills and there the results are more variable. In a proportion the bees are packing what honey they are collecting into the shallow upper brood box, backfilling with honey as the brood hatches while doing very little in the supers. Still, a shallow box of heather is well worth the effort of getting the bees up there and there are others which will have a good bit more.
    A few miles west of Biggar the hives are stuffed full with no space left for the bees so location is probably a critical factor.

    It is all relative, last year my heather average was just 3 lbs per colony, this year I am reluctant to speculate but if the weather is kind it could be the bumper year we hope for. When the alarm goes off at 4am and it is time to move yet another load of bees to the moors the temptation is to say "I'll give the heather a miss this year" and of course that would be the one time when big crops can be got. A good heather crop can be the making of a bee farmers livelyhood so we persevere.
  3. gavin's Avatar
    Was up at mine last night and had the chance to discuss the season with beekeepers at a funeral today. Despite the poor weather here mine have been holding their own, stores in the super-wise, and one has expanded its super stores. All feel particularly heavy (unless my arms were particularly weak last night!), suggesting that they are packing it into contracting brood nests in those brief spells when the sun comes out. One colony last night was purring away, suggesting they were processing the day's haul, much to my surprise given the weather yesterday.

    An Edinburgh beekeeper with bees in the Lammermuirs has filled supers in the last fortnight, and John M, famous beekeeper in the Dumfries area plus the Robsons in the borders are apparently talking of a great heather season. This year there is plenty of healthy flowering heather, good levels of dampness at the roots and there was a good early summer to give the plants oomff (if that matters!). All we need now .... please! .... is some warmer weather. In some places it hasn't been quite as cold as here, and they're doing well.
  4. Jon's Avatar
    June tends to be slack for queen cells. may is the worst month than another spate in July.
  5. drumgerry's Avatar
    No charged queen cells yet among my lot as well Gavin. I'd be surprised if I don't see any over the course of the next couple of weeks though
  6. gavin's Avatar
    LOL!

    > Do you think you might have swarmy stock?

    Just perhaps. I'm amazed that yours are so slow to make Q cells. The majority of mine have done so already.
  7. Jon's Avatar
    Never a dull moment in beekeeping!
    Do you think you might have swarmy stock?
    None of mine have made any queen cells yet this year apart from one box which I checked on Sunday which had about 10 sealed emergency cells.
    Something must have happened the queen when I checked the box a week before. (oops, what did I do!) This was one I had just transferred from a nuc to a full size brood box and was only over about 7 frames.
    I have 14 colonies on double brood at the moment and a few more on single brood chambers.
  8. Jon's Avatar
    I think that any race of bee will rear more bees if it is mild and there is abundant pollen.
    The problem is that some races continue to rear brood when the conditions are not right. Italians have this reputation for rearing brood right through the winter and consuming stores.
    I talk to the other native bee people including the Galtee breeders on a regular basis and their bees were hammering in with pollen right through the autumn which is a pretty strong indicator that they were rearing brood.
    I trickled a colony and 2 nucs in the garden yesterday and they looked fine and should overwinter well. The colony had 6 seams, and the nucs in poly boxes had 5 and 4. Checked today and very little drop. None from the nucs and about a dozen mites from the colony - one which dropped 800 at the start of November. Must have cleared most of them out the last time.
  9. gavin's Avatar
    I had the fondant in the back of the car but had forgotten to take a knife. Should get it sorted in the next couple of days then they'll be set until maybe mid March as half a (or maybe a full) 12.5kg box above their heads will see them through for a while. A cold spell in Jan-Feb to keep them quiet then mild from March should suit them.

    These colonies that eat their stores and make lots of young bees - are they less likely to be Amm, or is Amm happy to take advantage of good conditions when it can?
    Updated 15-12-2013 at 10:54 PM by gavin
  10. Jon's Avatar
    That all sounds pretty good. I noticed a nuc at the association apiary was packed with bees but light and it had been fed well. On balance, it is probably better to have the extra bees but care will be needed re the level of stores and feeding fondant
  11. busybeephilip's Avatar
    I've a field of what I think is turnips or old cabbage that is flowering, bees are covered in it. Getting woried about the warm weather as they are still breeding, when it gets cold (when?) the bees will have brood to feed and will try to fly in cold windy weather to forage. This will cause the hives to weaken rapidly. Plan to delay the OA until 3rd week in Jan if its cold enough !
  12. gavin's Avatar
    And on the first of December there was a flow on for one Dundee hive! Is that Gordonia still in flower FD?

    It was 10C in town today and a small tortoiseshell butterfly fly strongly straight over the allotment at lunchtime. I was probably changing the local microclimate with all that digging activity.
  13. gavin's Avatar
    Look out for the yellow weeds in arable fields, not usually cereal fields as the herbicide gets them. It was impressive how many had found it given the poor flying weather recently - the big advantage of efficient communication I suppose.
  14. The Drone Ranger's Avatar
    They were collecting the light yellow pollen here as well not sure where they were finding it but there was plenty available
  15. gavin's Avatar
    Right on all counts - the buggers are all back in the wall, and there is a mark where the lemon grass oil went on. And I spelled Nasonov wrong ...

    Plus Thornes are right out of Bee Quick ... which is claimed not to be benzaldehyde although it smells and acts like it, so I understand.
  16. beejazz's Avatar
    Ummm, doesn't lemongrass oil burn a hole in poly hives?
  17. greengumbo's Avatar
    I like your style Gavin....my poly hives also sport the "varroa brick red" colour

    Good luck.
  18. gavin's Avatar
    Benzaldehyde? Don't have any to hand. As you can just make out in the photo there are quite a few Nazanov fanning bees to the right of the box and there were only bees running about near the holes in the wall. They had decided the new home was better but could they persuade the others? And the queen? Time will tell, and not very much time at that ...
  19. Jon's Avatar
    One of the ones we bought in 3 weeks ago had several queen cups with eggs in yesterday evening.
    I marked and clipped the queen with our queen rearing group last night so that should make it easier to deal with.
    I'll probably set it up as a queenright cell raiser as that is an artificial swarm to all intents and purposes.

    Good luck with that wall colony. Don't fancy your chances but you never know.
    What about some of that stuff that smells like almonds which some people use for clearing supers?
  20. gavin's Avatar
    I'm a bit surprised not to have drone layers too. Haven't checked most of the association bees yet though. I doubt that the association bees will have any at cell raiser strength until July from my last peek in. Most are in that category you named above. Yes, several weeks late for the rape here too but I wouldn't like to put a number on it.
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