No experience here with heather honey greengumbo ... however, I regularly remove supers and keep them warm before extracting. Works a treat. This year they were stacked on my warming cabinet for nearly a fortnight.
What d'you mean "about to change" ... it's horrible and wet here already. I fear the himalayan balsam party is over
Attachment 2439Originally Posted by Calluna4u
Langstroth comb built from foundation last week....picture taken 2nd October.......You can see the open patch in the centre, that is full of eggs. This was a sheet of foundation when last seen about 20th September.
Definitely not as dark as that.
There's a deep bluey turquoise pollen with a distinctive hint of glitter to it that I see every year. I've always thought that that was willowherb. Willowherb used to be a major late nectar source around my Aberdeenshire out apiary - one of the few things flowering in the agri-desert, and I saw a lot of loads of that pollen there.
Of course I could be wrong! Either way, this blue stuff is very different, and I've not seen it before. Doesn't sound at all like phacelia, from your description. Another beekeeping mystery :-)
Attachment 2440Attachment 2441
To illustrate the practice (that surprises some as it is against all the text books) of September/October comb replacement.
This colony was left with 5 old combs and 6 of foundation when it came off the moors last week. It was one of 84 in the wintering site, and most are the similar (maybe 25% are smaller) having 4 to 7 of foundation added. They were fed on 30th September at which time they were sitting with the foundation more or less untouched and the cluster looking ok and on about 7 bars (you get a lot of bees in a small space on foundation). This picture was taken on 4th October.
You can see the bees are now right across the box, and the single frame shown was the extreme right one as you look at the hive, so against the side wall. Note that there is zero drone comb drawn. All 6 of foundation are fully drawn, all perfect. As you can see it works a treat. The feed is 10 litres of invert syrup and is enough to see them through to spring.
Still got about 10 days of a window yet in the wooden hives for this job, but most of the rest of the month in poly.
Love the 'hint of glitter' image, but apart from that you are spot on with the deep turquoise description. Sounds like another ID job for Gavin.
That comb has amber nectar/honey. Doesn't look like balsam - could it be Japanese knotweed? Or is it heather getting mixed in?
Yup, rosebay willowherb has that coarse surface that comes from having gigantic pollen grains.
Emma's blue pollen. I'm sure that I've posted this cracking picture before - Phacelia pollen showing the vivid Royal blue colour. From this blog:
http://trogtrogblog.blogspot.co.uk/2...or-forage.html
Recently back from tonight's East of Scotland Beekeepers meeting (OK, I've been doing a tax return for an hour and a half) where Magnus entertained us with tales from the CSI Pollen project. Tony, one of our beginners, brought in a sample of some honey he's just harvested. He obtained one of these cracking ESBA 5-frame nuclei in late July, put it in a Swienty National, fed it as instructed, and once it had filled its box put on a super. The super is now stuffed with bees and pretty much full of capped honey.
It isn't heather, it isn't Himalayan balsam. Could it be Japanese knotweed? A mid amber colour, pleasant taste, maybe a bit nutty or with a hint of molasses, rather thick consistency but not jelly-like. The bees were flying down the hill towards the edge of the estuary and had no particular pollen patterns.
Might be just an artifact of the photo. I do not recall it being amber. More a straw colour. Only Japanese knotweed honey I have seen was a very deep colour, similar to classic bell heather, though maybe a bit redder.
Ditto your phacelia shot.....it is more blue and less purple than any I have seen, though it is very variable depending a lot on how the light strikes it.
Correction to the above...day after posting this message. The problem in not the phacelia photo, it is the colour settings on my laptop. Today on my office desktop the colours are just fine, very typical phacelia photo.
As regards the other photo having amber honey? Well I have decided after a further check and seeing the surprising area of young brood in the hive, that it was caused by them opening up the centre combs of stores they were left with and moving honey around, hence it will be a balsam/syrup/ling mixture you are seeing in the picture.
Gavin....your last post about the mid amber honey? We were getting a small yet noticeable flow of honeydew at Star Inn and Mains of Gray before the bees went off to the heather, and sounds a bit like your sample described. Some was treacly in taste, other hives it was more a butterscotch taste. So tasty in fact my staff were bringing combs back to base.........grrrr. lol. There was even more of it in the Hereford area.
Last edited by Calluna4u; 07-10-2015 at 05:46 PM. Reason: Add more info.
Royal blue. Yes, that's the phrase I was hunting for. And the photo looks like what I was seeing on the varroa boards...Yup, rosebay willowherb has that coarse surface that comes from having gigantic pollen grains.
Emma's blue pollen. I'm sure that I've posted this cracking picture before - Phacelia pollen showing the vivid Royal blue colour. From this blog:
http://trogtrogblog.blogspot.co.uk/2...or-forage.html
...until it had lain in the rain for a while, by which time it had turned darker and more purple. So now I'm pretty confident it's phacelia, from both descriptions. Thanks!
Academic question at the moment, of course. Rain over Fife, bees staying indoors, woodwork soaked :-(
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks