Newsflash 2020 was a rubbish year

Good riddance to 2020.

Having just finished the harvest and now moving onto feeding and treating I'll be glad to see the back of the beekeeping year of 2020. The season started with high varroa numbers (a rollover from last years dramas) but these were swiftly brought under control so I thought we were on for a good year. The colony I was looking to split was built up to double brood and in May was splitting at the seams with bees. Towards the end of May swarm cells appeared so I split the hive but removed the old queen and put her in a nuc at an out apiary leaving 2 brood boxes with lots of bees and almost ripe queen cells. After removing all but one QC I thought my job was done however 3 weeks later after checking the bees it was clear one QC had failed leaving only one queen right hive. The old queen in the nuc with plenty of bees and stores stopped laying which I wasn't too worried about until after a week I noticed she still hadn't laid. A week turned into 3 and it was clear the old queen had stopped laying so she was removed and a new queen bought in with the plan of uniting this new nuc with the hive without a queen. New queen placed in, left for a week and... disappeared! The bees clearly didn't accept her leaving me with 2 hives without a queen! The current plan now is to unite everything with the queen right hive and forget 2020 ever happened.

The joys of beekeeping.

I also have had several hives go queenless, or queens lost on mating flights or whatever. No swarms, but my swarm control often ended up with me reuniting the old Q with the original hive.

Weirdly, one of my apiaries gave a bumper crop of summer honey, the other (usually very dependable) was total rubbish. Both did well in the spring.

2020 looking like a great year!
Although we had two very strong hives in May, they obviously over did it and eventually split 1 and the other after many sound inspections eventually went mad and threw off 4 swarms (we were happy for this)so we have 4 promoted nucs going great and building up for next year. On the other hand, some blossom honey (off the swarming hive) which is a bonus in the highlands, and we are now into a great heather flow. Never had frame after frame of perfectly capped honey ready for cut comb, and a lot more to come off in September when we do the main extraction. 10 strong hives to go into winter. 2020 the best ever


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Originally Posted by Bridget

2020 looking like a great year!
Although we had two very strong hives in May, they obviously over did it and eventually split 1 and the other after many sound inspections eventually went mad and threw off 4 swarms (we were happy for this)so we have 4 promoted nucs going great and building up for next year. On the other hand, some blossom honey (off the swarming hive) which is a bonus in the highlands, and we are now into a great heather flow. Never had frame after frame of perfectly capped honey ready for cut comb, and a lot more to come off in September when we do the main extraction. 10 strong hives to go into winter. 2020 the best ever


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Well, that was some salt you poured into the wound there Bridget. I should have banned all positivity from this thread at the beginning!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bridget

2020 looking like a great year!
Although we had two very strong hives in May, they obviously over did it and eventually split 1 and the other after many sound inspections eventually went mad and threw off 4 swarms (we were happy for this)so we have 4 promoted nucs going great and building up for next year. On the other hand, some blossom honey (off the swarming hive) which is a bonus in the highlands, and we are now into a great heather flow. Never had frame after frame of perfectly capped honey ready for cut comb, and a lot more to come off in September when we do the main extraction. 10 strong hives to go into winter. 2020 the best ever


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Ooft that's some serious salt in the wound there Bridget. I should have banned all positive comments towards 2020 at the start of the thread!

I can be negative too.
Not a brilliant year for my girls but as always highs and lows; joys and frustrations.

A slow start and OSR came early so colonies were not strong enough to really take advantage - although some OSR honey remains in some super frames which will go under for winter. The season has been fairly flat overall with honey down compared to last year. I have had one queen paralysed and cease laying, several start to lay and then get superceded and one that disappeared but only after failing as the colony didn't produce queencells. And on one bright Saturday morning, I saw a decent swarm with a virgin sail over the top of a bait hive and into the distance. Very annoying - the remaining queencell was the scrubbiest you would ever see. I missed it.
I will need to give a fair bit of syrup before winter and I hope the ivy helps out well - it was not much good last year.

Silvbee. Is this post bad enough?

Well I don’t know where you are Silvbee but here in the highlands our mega year is probably much like your standard year. Virtually no blossom honey, very late start etc etc yet 50 miles north it’s a totally different climate. Without the heather we wouldn’t have much in the way of beekeeping. We are very grateful that this year turned out well in the end, despite the frantic feeding in June when the queens stopped laying. Think they thought winter had come early!


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Originally Posted by Adam

I can be negative too.
Not a brilliant year for my girls but as always highs and lows; joys and frustrations.

A slow start and OSR came early so colonies were not strong enough to really take advantage - although some OSR honey remains in some super frames which will go under for winter. The season has been fairly flat overall with honey down compared to last year. I have had one queen paralysed and cease laying, several start to lay and then get superceded and one that disappeared but only after failing as the colony didn't produce queencells. And on one bright Saturday morning, I saw a decent swarm with a virgin sail over the top of a bait hive and into the distance. Very annoying - the remaining queencell was the scrubbiest you would ever see. I missed it.
I will need to give a fair bit of syrup before winter and I hope the ivy helps out well - it was not much good last year.

Silvbee. Is this post bad enough?

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No OSR here, nor Ivy or anything planted by farmers, except neeps!


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Adam

I can be negative too.
Not a brilliant year for my girls but as always highs and lows; joys and frustrations.

A slow start and OSR came early so colonies were not strong enough to really take advantage - although some OSR honey remains in some super frames which will go under for winter. The season has been fairly flat overall with honey down compared to last year. I have had one queen paralysed and cease laying, several start to lay and then get superceded and one that disappeared but only after failing as the colony didn't produce queencells. And on one bright Saturday morning, I saw a decent swarm with a virgin sail over the top of a bait hive and into the distance. Very annoying - the remaining queencell was the scrubbiest you would ever see. I missed it.
I will need to give a fair bit of syrup before winter and I hope the ivy helps out well - it was not much good last year.

Silvbee. Is this post bad enough?

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Yep that passes the "wallowing in the echo chamber of social media test" ;)

I have a friend who lives in Kingussie and started his beekeeping adventure this year. He got his nuc in late June and has managed a good crop of honey. Must be a little pocket of positivity in the Cairngorms.

Heather has been great. Still about 45% to go round here but miserable for a few days now. Hoping it warms up a little so we get a bit more


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