Neils

I am still alive, honest.

Just taken off the honey from the Nature Reserve. Had a slight panic after the first taste that somehow I'd ended up with a lot of syrup in the supers. Then the sensible side of me kicked in a realised that this colony has had no syrup whatsoever this year but still the Honey is a lot runnier and less distinctly "honey" tasting than the stuff off the allotment. There's still a box or so to come off there tomorrow and hopefully that will be the end of this year's harvest and the treatments can go on that hive before time drags on yet again.

Once again this year I've tried to keep even Icing sugar treatments to a minimum which hasn't been too difficult as I normally only spot the box of icing sugar after I've closed up. But I'm continuing to treat with Apiguard in autumn to keep tabs on where they are with regards to Varroa although as it's organic certified I am considering switching to Api Life Var but part of me tends to think that Thymol is thymol.

I've also given up using natural drop as really giving any kind of realistic indication of the varroa levels, again this year, as per last, I've had practically zero natural drop but drone brood uncapping does seem to indicate that they're, broadly speaking, keeping on top of things.

Otherwise things seem to be going well, I hope I've judged things right and haven't taken too much honey and I don't end up having to top them up with syrup for winter but we'll see.