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Thread: todays news

  1. #2811

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    Quote Originally Posted by Feckless Drone View Post
    C4U - interesting for many reasons. You are feeding much later than I am, I completed that by end Sept for some, start of Oct for the rest. My feeding is carried out over 2-3 weeks, not all in one go but with a small quantity followed by a couple of large feeds, but I still suspect I run the risk of clogging up the hive and maybe not leaving enough room for late brood rearing.

    I took my bees up to the heather later then you do, but did not feed. The forage for them was pretty good in early Aug- and I had supers on so frames just got moved over to other colonies and thin foundation put on for the heather-bound hives. Because the forage was good the Qs had picked up laying but I thought a bit late to get lots of bees of a foraging age but they seemed to do OK towards the end of the heather. The heather flow was later than I expected, in one of the Angus glens it came in during the middle of Sept (thankfully - cause I thought I was going to get nada, and once more lose credibility - DR's "hey this is science" line not going to work with gamekeepers). But, I brought mine down and harvested earlier than you do - wanting to get on with feeding and varroa treatments. I might need to rethink my timings and be willing to leave them up in the hills a bit longer.

    What is your regime for varroa at this point?
    Our timing is actually mainly a logistics matter. I would think it PERFECT if we could have all our bees home and fed for early October but it would cost me a kings ransom and we would get into a very serious bottleneck at home base with the yard all backed up with pallets waiting to go through the extracting room. we have over 60 pallets waiting as it is.....

    We are also using invert all the time, only variant is fondant in times when they will not take the syrup, which mostly means December to early March. Nothing wrong with your timings if you do not have other pressures and you are using normal sugar syrup. They can take and store invert safely as sound stores a good bit later than needs to be the case with less concentrated feed.

    The old saying that if you are up for the grouse shooting you are up in time held good this year, in fact some people went a lot later than that this year and did fine. On a smaller scale you can afford to wait till you see the whites of its eyes before you go. It takes us 2 to 3 weeks to move everything. The old saying sometimes holds true, but of course it discounts the bell heather. Even though, in 12 of the last 20 years the best flow was past if you waited till the 12th August. Some years there is little ling and the bell is the bulk of what comes in. We start to move in the first week of July, to have everything up in time, bell dominant sites first like Dinnet, and higher ling sites last. Earliest season we had in Deeside had the main ling flow starting in the last days of July, and we cannot afford to miss it, so we get our skates on fairly sharpish knowing we are missing little of commercial value down here. Like you, in late August it was looking catastrophic, maybe 20% of normal overall, but it picked up to merely being a failure (in commercial terms that is).

    If we had to treat for varroa now we would wait until the week before Christmas and do an oxalic trickle. Works fine though a bit hard on the small ones which we would probably prefer to leave to take their chance (but never do for fear of them reinfesting their neighbours). We never sublimate as we just cannot deal with the logistics of going round everything for the succession of treatments required, and no chemist/beekeeper I know does it, and was advised very strongly by one of them not to. I have staff welfare and possible litigation to consider if any of them were harmed by it. One of my guys used to do it in Germany and Austria and did not greatly rate the effects and also that it made them feel pretty off colour after doing very large numbers of hives every few days.

    You are local, and I have no problem if you were to pop in some time and see what we do and have a chatter. Any who do find out we are not the big bad bogey man, but actually just the same in so many ways, just the numbers are bigger.
    Last edited by Calluna4u; 02-11-2015 at 06:34 PM.

  2. #2812

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    Yesterday's news... after many days away, I was able to spend an hour or two loitering in the apiary again. Two hives have now turned space-age: I hid one beneath a neat, shiny insulation-foam cover, and crudely wrapped the other one in even shinier 1970s aluminium foil beer bags. An attempt at weatherproofing: in a few months I'll find out whether I've kept the damp out or in.
    There was plenty of pollen going in but I have no idea how much brood there is inside and I'm astonished that so many of you are still checking. My colonies have had their grumpy "Keep Out!" notices up for weeks by now. Aren't yours the same?! Even gently tinkering with hive arrangements for a couple of them yesterday - just lifting parts of their crownboards - led to some angry smells and a very unhappy collective muttering. They didn't sting, but some very spiky little bottoms were raised in my general direction. I'll be on external checks only for the next few months.

  3. #2813
    Senior Member Greengage's Avatar
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    I was getting concerned there for a while so nice to hear im on the same track as Emma, as people were still checking their hives, I have closed mine up for the past two weeks all looks good but time will tell. There are bees still flying bringing in Pollen from Ivy. Here in the centre of Ireland it has been very foggy for the past few days so not much activity. I traveled to the south west last weekend (Kerry) and visited a small apiary like most other places he did not have a very productive year either his bees are still flying and wasps are stilll active around the hive. I had some of his cut comb honey delicious. As I dont own an extractor I think I will collect cut comb rather than extract honey next season, also saw an idea on the net where jars with a little comb were placed above the crown board and bees filled them up looked clever, then I can afford to play around with these ideas as Iam not dependant on it for a living. This is the idea http://removeandreplace.com/2013/05/...d-project-diy/ would I be silly or would it work.

  4. #2814

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    To the last two posters, you are on the right lines. Even we have finished going into broodnests for the year now. Honey is all off and are on the last few days of carting the hives home from the moors. All being well we will not now 'break comb' at all until warm days in April. Once they are adequately fed, and have taken it, there is not much you can do to benefit them by nosing in at this time of year. From now till spring if we DO enter a broodnest it will be because of a problems of some kind, like a hive damaged by a tree branch or whatever nefarious reason (normally involving kids and rocks) and we need to move it into an undamaged hive.

    They will still take syrup in a poly hive or from a poly feeder but even that is nearing an end. If you gave them enough leave the anxiety behind and relax till early spring. They WILL be ok. No need even to break the propolis/wax seal they make. Curiosity killed the cat.

    Nothing unusual about the timing. Bonfire night is about our normal finish date. We will be a couple of days late on that this year, but that's not a serious issue considering how late the season ran and we were 10 days to two weeks late starting harvest and migration work, we have actually caught up a bit.

    ......

    'break comb' was an old timers expression for going into the broodnest investigating. Does not apply if all you are doing is looking down from the top bars. However its still advisable not to go lifting feeders or crown boards to look at the cluster in winter. Breaks the carefully applied seal the bees put in place AND its surprising how often the queen is right at the top and if you did not spot her, and carelessly replace the board/ feeder/ whatever it can be crunchy time for the queen and a knackered hive for spring. So easy to do.
    Last edited by Calluna4u; 03-11-2015 at 09:35 AM.

  5. #2815

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    Quote Originally Posted by Calluna4u View Post
    However its still advisable not to go lifting feeders or crown boards to look at the cluster in winter. Breaks the carefully applied seal the bees put in place
    When doing the winter oxalic trickle treatment are not all of the carefully applied seals going to be broken, just before what is usually the coldest part of the year.

  6. #2816

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    Quote Originally Posted by Calluna4u View Post
    Our timing is actually mainly a logistics matter.
    Yes, I can appreciate better now that you are juggling a lot re timings, space, staffing, money. Graeme Sharp gave an interesting talk at the ESBA last night on Q rearing and he touched on certain logistics as well with his 100 or so colonies. Anyway, your comments give me some confidence then in my timings.

    For Emma - I've not lifted frames since last week in Sept seeing the same "keep away please" signs and only then in one hive to check how supersedure was going - answer is I can't be sure cause new Q was running around (I think), just a few eggs visible, so left with fingers crossed. I don't intend to open hives until applying oxalic acid on a really cold day in late Dec/early Jan. Generally such a quick procedure that should not be too disruptive. Then its just worrying about them until April and trying not to buy stuff I don't need. Actually, this winter I'll try to read some of the really old time books - look for myths and truths!

  7. #2817

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pete L View Post
    When doing the winter oxalic trickle treatment are not all of the carefully applied seals going to be broken, just before what is usually the coldest part of the year.
    Of course. You have to balance out which you think is more important. Preserve the seal or kill the varroa. Of course its normally the latter. Its just good practice but by no means a rule.

    However, not everyone does the mid winter trickle and indeed I would hazard a guess that the way fashions go in beekeeping that the practice is in at least temporary decline. We see no need for it this year as our bees seems to have a negligible mite load after the double whammy (for varroa) of a mid season treatment with Biowar (Apivar equivalent) and a partial brood break in July.

    We have the oxalic on hand to use if I change my mind, and I am being strongly pressured by Jolanta to use it, but I favour leaving them alone, especially the smaller colonies.

    Sublimation of oxalic seems to have become very fashionable and hopefully all will be finished by now. Also if you have used any of the thymol or formic acid based treatments. If so and finished with them than leave well alone.
    Last edited by Calluna4u; 03-11-2015 at 12:25 PM.

  8. #2818

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    Just been up to check on my hives and they are flying well, most of the hives has taken all the sugar syrup that I gave it 2 have not touched it. I know I am new to beekeeping but there taking in some amount of pollen, is this normal ? does this mean the queen is still laying or are they just topping up supplies ?

  9. #2819

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    Quote Originally Posted by Calluna4u View Post
    However, not everyone does the mid winter trickle and indeed I would hazard a guess that the way fashions go in beekeeping that the practice is in at least temporary decline.
    I have only ever done a winter treatment using oxalic acid trickle method during two winters, 2007 & 2008, much prefer to sort out the mite problems in late summer early autumn, hopefully before the winter bees are produced, I like some of the thymol treatments and oxalic sublimation, am also using Biowar for the first time on some of the full size colonies this season, and on all of the nucs, plus a third of a strip in all the over wintering mini nucs.

  10. #2820

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    Hi C4u
    Appreciate the point about staff welfare and oxalic sublimation, evaporation, whatever the right description is
    It is pretty effective treatment though

    I did a bar graph of mites killed in Winter 2008/9 using a varrox vaporiser (after a September/October treatment with Apistan which I think was a waste of money)
    It might look pretty ropey here because I can only upload a Jpeg but have a look at the graph it should give the general picture
    28thvarroacount2009.jpg
    Thats the drop from 22 hives in a stacked bar graph
    In other words the total varroa count in the apiary

    I have read on other forums about people doing lots of oxalic treatments one after another
    I can't understand for the life of me why anyone would think that was OK or even necessary
    Two takes care of almost all the mites
    Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 03-11-2015 at 05:23 PM.

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