Lol.
No beekeeping whatsoever today but I saw a hell of a lot of bees ... I had a half day of late season trout fishing on the River Eden in Fife. The banks are thick with balsam in places, though it's clearly coming to an end. Those flowers remaining were being worked hard by thousands of bees. Some were nearly completely white they were so covered with pollen. A lovely sight.
Spent a bit of time searching for this little chap but no luck so far....
http://www.biodiversityireland.ie/ca...irish-ivy-bee/
It's got a way to go yet ... http://www.bwars.com/index.php?q=con...s-hederae-2015 ... but it got that far in 14 years so shouldn't be too long.
Since this is scottish forum this might interest you http://www.bwars.com/index.php?q=con...uide-published
You see something new every year................
Never ever in my time. or my fathers, have we seen a flow in October. We are not talking ivy, much loved by some beekeepers in the south. It is balsam. Was out feeding hives today that had come home from the heather and were due to get their full winter feed, as usual at this time we have several frames of foundation inserted in the nest to be drawn on the feed. These bees had been home only three days.
To my surprise the middle frames of foundation were drawn or in the process of being drawn. 'Ghost bees' everywhere. Pulled out some centre bars to see what was going on and the nectar fell out like water. Some of the foundation was nearly fully drawn, already had the start of a pollen arc and had eggs in the centre. a truly exceptional week for early October, and one we might not see again for a long long time.
To the botanists in our midst....What is the very rich red pollen that they are bringing in in quite large amounts at the same time as they are working balsam? No idea myself.
I'll admit to being a botanist and I also saw red pollen this afternoon. I'm not sure what it is but Scabious may be a possibility.
Maybe Jolanta will get her microscope out if you ask nicely!
Here at the southern end of the Spey the heather is still in bloom, patches of it still quite strong and the bees are still working hard bringing in pollen as well, mainly yellow not red. As they are still going strong and with the good weather our nucs had well outgrown their box and had to be transferred into a brood box, all be it with a large dummy board at one end. As we still have supers to come off the main hives we have not started with winter feed or varroa treatment yet.
This year is the first time we have had double brood boxes and supers. We reduced them to one brood box and one super 10 days ago but they look, too full to go down to just a brood box when we take the supers off next week. I know they will reduce in numbers soon but maybe not enough. I'm not sure if I shouldn't put the second brood box back or maybe go brood and a half. Any advice? People say brood and a half is a pain but with our winter here I would wonder if two brood boxes is too much.
These are the bad tempered hives I worried about in July. Despite advice to do away with the queens and set them up with the queens raised with Drumgerrys gentle bees we decided that they were doing too well to be killed off and decided to give them another winter and do away with them in the spring. Meantime I became allergic, my husband took over, they have been very kind to him and we have had about 100 lbs of honey so far with more to come off! Not sure what the moral of that story is but there must be one somewhere!
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