Wintery blasts again.
Still I managed to finally get round to ordering a load of hives from Swienty in Denmark and frame/wax from Wilara. Great service and very communicative......and a heap cheaper than what I could find in the UK.
One small step for a small scale beefarmer to be
Prepare for panic as the swarms overcome me and the splits I make from existing hives don't take !
Pretty darn cold here, was snowing for a short while. Some of mine are on double boxes with a super (plenty of dandelions about, blackthorn and chestnut starting), also young drones were present although have not seen any flying yet (there not stupid when its cold) supposed to be cold for a week then warm up again, no joke but I can see many beeks with strong hives loosing swarms in the next week or two.
Bit cold but sunny here
Of the 14 keilers I took into Winter only 3 left now
My fault obviously but still a bit disappointing
The Keiler is about the same internal dimension to the apidea, ? I never had much luck with trying to over winter apideas in that I gave up even trying, they always dies off in the spring. Jon overwinters his queens for spring in double apideas which I suppose gives them a better bee population and bigger food reserve. Just back from my local bee meeting, and the situation for most beeks seems not to good with many loosing all their bees and some colonies just not worth trying to nurse. Others are reporting hives full of bees and one person even reported having a queen cell so its a real mixed bag. The way I look at it is that it sorts out the bees with "good" genetics from those that do not have a good survival instinct so it can only be a good thing in the long run.
Continuing the feeding programme. Many colonies getting desperate. Sitting on the OSR...getting zilch.
Some apiaries on an upward trend bees wise now, but most still not reached crossover day.......not seen any drones other than in colonies with problems. No drone brood in good stock, only less choice stuff. Will now not commence grafting until middle of May. Suppose it could be done earlier if trying to prove a point, but the results will not be optimal.
Originally Posted by Calluna4u
Knocked out a couple of supercedure cells yesterday for just that reason. Nice looking cells both with 11/12 day olds but what's the point of having worthless virgins wandering the combs. Drone numbers are improving at inland sites but May's often poor here so the odds are against the queens every time.
The OSR is still a few weeks away from flowering up this way Murray. I recall you have a unit near Inverurie or is that someone else ? Some fields are showing patches of flowers but nothing significant. Hopefully the weather improves next week so that by the time it flowers the bees can take advantage.
I am still feeding colonies to be sure they are okay. The differences between the wooden and poly hives this year in particular is really obvious.
Hi phillip
Quite a few were double keilers but once the stores run out and they are not able to fly due to weather (even with food in the compartment) they just seem to sit on the combs and die
In a way it shows why so many queens are imported every year
Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 28-04-2016 at 06:10 PM.
Will be up for a look in the next couple of days. Have 12 to 14 apiaries in the Monymusk/Kemnay/Castle Fraser area every year. They are an isolated unit that stays up there, only going to heather around Dinnet and Glengairn, then back out to their area of origin. Kept that way so no-one can point the finger at us for brining anything nasty into the area. They are still concentrated in 3 wintering sites and need distributing out to their OSR locations. Very low losses indeed up there this year. One the fingers of one hand out of 200....but drone layers etc still to be found. We do not do autumn uniting either, so this is the loss since heather stripping time, when the obvious duds are just shaken out.
Went out for a break from the computer, back of 5pm, because I saw something that looked a bit like sunshine. By the time I'd checked and rinsed a couple of varroa boards my hands were turning purple with the cold. The bees were flying. Nutters! Or locally adapted, who knows?
The longhive colony has dropped a big clutch of drone cappings & continues to forage avidly. I wrapped their leaky box at the start of the winter & by now it's dry. They've been expanding steadily backwards for the last few weeks.
They seem optimistic about the near future. Having driven slowly home through a blizzard tonight, I'm wondering whether they've judged it right.
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