gavin

In most years my bees have been struggling to get to full strength in time for the heather. Too much swarming, too many nucs produced, poor summers and my reluctance to spend money on sugar. After managing my colonies for strength this year, and replacing queens heading some stocks with something better (thanks Jon!) I'm optimistic about a better heather crop than recent years.

They went up a little later than planned, on 2 August. Just too much going on this year. Many thanks ...

My learning curve hasn't flattened out yet! Here was yesterday's experience. The Perth and District BA persuaded me to offer a couple of hours of my time as one of the items in their early spring auction. Steve, the winner, arrived at 1pm at my main apiary yesterday.

OK, a cast hanging in a tree as I arrived. It happens, especially as my visits have been hurried and slightly less than weekly in the main. Later we found an opened Q cell as well as a sealed Q cell in a split ...

Went round them all today - 15 colonies for the local association plus ten of my own. Trickling the 25 colonies in four apiaries up to 10 miles apart took 3 hours. Nice to see Lorna at the association apiary helping out. OK, I only did 24 as one of mine boiled out and flew in numbers at me when I prized off the corner of the crown board. I'll try it again in a few days. Otherwise they were mostly clustered to varying degrees of compaction.

My impressions? At three apiaries their ...

... and they're still bringing in pollen.

First visit to my main apiary today for about 2 months. The bees were flying vigorously, maybe not such a surprise with the temperature somewhere near 11C. One colony was piling in the pale yellow pollen and I reckon it was coming from a rape field just under a km away which has a lot of charlock in flower. Given the hard frosts earlier this week that was a bit of a surprise. I've been a bit distracted of late and so today those needing a ...

It was biling this afternoon in Dundee ..... now that suddenly puts me in mind of some Marra.......



.... anyway .... it was biling in Dundee so after work I checked out two colonies in Dundee (having been kept away by a chest infection). The one on the western edge of Dundee was most impressive. It has built up to fill its box and was near wall-to-wall brood or stores. It looks like it is mostly Himalayan balsam coming in, and ...