Alan,
you need to sake a sample of your honey and process as in :
http://www.biodlarna.se/website1/1.0...o%20slides.pdf
Best
Phil
Alan,
you need to sake a sample of your honey and process as in :
http://www.biodlarna.se/website1/1.0...o%20slides.pdf
Best
Phil
Down here, A bawful year's crop. I've enough for my own rationed comsumption and that's it. The beekeeping union that normally blames everything on pesticides has added the dreadful summer weather for giving honey crops that vary from a 50% to 80% drop from last year in most areas of the country. Apparently the worst year they've ever known.Originally Posted by gavin
My Warré gave me more honey than all my Dadants added together.
I worked through a varroa ravaged apiary today(one of mine that I hadnt got round to since mid July). Only 9 full supers to clear from 11 hives, lots of supers put on the trailer without needing clearing as they were empty of bees or honey. None of the hives had crashed, but dwv , bald brood, sac brood, pms and abandoned brood much in evidence and I imagine many of these wont make it through the winter as they've taken too much damage already. My notes said to keep an eye on these as there was too much evidence of varroa on the last visit but by the looks of things one of the local treatment free beekeepers has suffered losses and ramped up the infestation of mine. A good splodge of apiguard and a a bit of feed will hopeful;ly bring most round but I'm afraid I'm too late for some as there simply wont be enough healthy bees hatching to raise another batch of clean brood before the winter. I am chastened
Wow, some sad stories there ...
The last two years have been really dire for me, but this year - despite the almost constant northerly wind - has been very good. I ran out of boxes by mid-summer, and I've been busy making more 18-frame Long Hives since then.
The performance of Jon's queens in particular has been excellent: they joined the circus only five and a half weeks ago, yet have already outgrown the 6-frame nucs I'd planned to over-winter them in, and are currently in Nationals on 8-frames. Great layers.
LJ
I do not have a centrifuge but have identified pollen in honey by gravity overnight but there were few grains any advice on this?
dont know if it would work but, your extractor is basically a centrifuge - you might be able to make a jig to hold a tube but need to spin for a long time to pellet pollen
you'd need some sort of bucket that can swing out from the verticle to horizontal to hold the tube
Queens who won't lay and record varroa count and visible DWV - 3rd treatment this year - worried I will loose my colonies one way or another over winter.
I'm with you all that HJBee. I have a new queen hopefully now mated but in a varroa ridden hive and I don't believe I should treat it until she is laying. It's a bit late for her to build up that colony for winter so it's all a bit of a mess. So far only 4 frames to be extracted though there may be a little more heather honey to come
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You don't need a centrifuge, you can use the sedimentation method.
This old thread on the BBKA forum describes it - 3rd or 4th post.
http://www.bbka.org.uk/members/forum.php?t=1409
As the thread discusses, identifying the actual grains is not easy, then you have to apply pollen co-efficients to work out the actual percentages.
Some pollens are quite distinctive under the scope, e.g. Rosebay willow herb.
Helen and Bridget, won't you consider treating with Apivar? I don't think it affects the queen.
Kitta
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