gavin

Stopped by at the apiary this afternoon and was pleased and surprised to see the strength of the colonies there. First one, 10 seams of bees, almost wall to wall (they're in single National brood boxes). Next one, 10 seams (! - I've never seen the like), one weak one at maybe 2 seams (it had been blown off its stand, but maybe it has a queen problem?), the other one which had been tipped over by the storms had maybe 5 seams, then the last two had 9 and 9 seams. None were desperate for more feed. ...

It hit the heights of 12C in the Carse of Gowrie at lunchtime so I wondered if the bees were out enjoying themselves. Oh yes! Spring has definitely arrived. The carpets of snowdrops were gaping in the unaccustomed warmth, waiting for guests to come to do the business, and the bees were obliging. There were a few small flies up and about, but what other insect could possibly service these flowers' need for a bit of genetic mixing?

So it was time for my annual attempt to take decent ...

Yesterday my bees (bar one colony at home) got their mid-winter sweet and sour treat. Previously I've used the 4.5% oxalic acid dihydrate recipe (which some call 3.2% oxalic as that would be the weight/volume strength if people used anhydrous oxalic acid). This really confuses people. There has been a lot of stuff posted in various places recently and not all of it is right.

The standard recipe - as has been posted elsewhere on this site - is:

75g + 1000g sugar + 1000ml ...

Broke all the rules today and lifted a frame from a couple of hives. It was 15C at lunchtime and there were clouds of bees in the air, rather more than I'd been expecting. Tipped off from across the Irish Sea that stores were being converted to bees still, that seems to be the case here too. One had a patch of eggs about three inches across, and a few young larvae nearby. A few colonies are getting noticeably lighter than they were. Another, one that I'd thought might be queenless, had a sealed ...

Time for an update. The four at the heather came back heavy, and provided three full supers of cut comb honey. Yum yum. And many thanks to my helper, couldn't have done the heavy lifting without you. They have had Apiguard, one round only, which I hope will hold any Varroa problem at bay until the December oxalic treatment. The other three stayed put in the orchard and endured a wet August and most of September, and one of them went totally broodless for a while. However feeding has wakened ...