Looks like a fair amount of ragwort in the background ?
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Looks like a fair amount of ragwort in the background ?
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We have a few patches of it around most places we go. They show little interest in it unless desperate.Originally Posted by wee willy
Just working heather, with a few from most hives on tormentil (which they never completely abandon even during the strongest flows).
You don't get the full impression from the picture but there is heather surrounding that location on all sides which lies almost in a bowl, and there is at least one face to the sun no matter what time of day. Its is too late a picture to see it but there is also a lot of bell there, especially on a hillside just out of shot to the right. Its a very good spot.
A shame we left the place just over half full this year.........
Bit late for this bit of advice......Knew about the flooding risks next to the river the road was closed a couple of times last year
Didn't know about the AFB though
You can be pretty sure that going downstream there will be loads more balsam
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Was at two of our units of nucs yesterday. Jolanta is away on her annual holidays and has been for four weeks and I was left in charge. I of course ran into a major heather flow and was too busy to attend to the nucs, but all the groups are deliberately sited on major areas of balsam to get late summer build up.
Thus I presumed they would be ok, and if there was an issue it would be the same one as last year, that they got too full on balsam and needed frames taking out.
Wrong. They have done precisely zilch on the balsam this year, apart from a few days that only maintained them. I find them not built up, no expansive brood rearing going on, and perilously light. They need feeding immediately, and two had actually succumbed to starvation. Not a major issue out of 350, but an embarrassment and sad to see. (This is the full 6 frame nucs I am talking about, not the mating boxes, which have been absolutely massacred by wasps in the last 3 weeks.)
Its a feeding weekend for me before 'she who worries about her babies' comes back and gives me serious grief.
Anyone else who has been relying on balsam and not bothering to look better go check their bees. The mature hives left behind as drone providers are a little better but no great shakes. Long way from having found their winter food from balsam and lime etc.
Good tip C4u its the ones with most brood who are at the greatest risk because they use up all the stores faster
Most of my bees are coming back coated white at the moment
Still feeding steadily though
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Surprised to hear this about the balsam. Just a couple of weeks ago you could see the nectar dripping off the flowers up on Balgay hill.
Q for you C4U (that I would have asked had I been visiting you site). If your colonies have had access to bell and ling heather honey then how do you deal with the different properties when extracting? or do you just loosen the ling and keep it all together?
Just put the whole lot through the loosener and extract it in one pass. It can be messy passing bell through the loosener, and if any straight bell comes along it goes through the system without loosening. Not an issue this year as there will be no pure bell combs, the year being very heavily ling dominant.
I get the same price for both and the drums are then graded later by the trader. Some packers want high bell, others want high ling. My personal preference is a natural mix (by the bees, not done by a tank mix), maybe about 50/50, sold as a smooth set. Huge and long lasting flavour.
As for the balsam, well its a surprise to me too. The bees have been coming in white for weeks and I was quite happy they would be prospering, but far less nectar than last year. Two years ago was also a washout on the balsam. The only places that were getting much nectar also had access to bits and pieces of phacelia...you could see the pollen in them, but that is now mostly gone and though the balsam still has abundant flower on it the stores level is going down and egg laying is curtailed, which we don't want to see in the nucs, so it was feeding all weekend.
Thanks C4U. I've never tried the "loosener" just tend to press out the heather honey. Occasionally I see patches of what looks bell-like but I just mix it in. And from my site half way up the Sidlaws I get a mixture of clover, thistle, willowherb, bramble and ling going so always have to press the combs otherwise most of the honey just stays stuck. But, having a good amount of ling in with the blossom does give a good honey. I am going to have a go next season at getting a crop of bell heather honey.
Bees taking down feed like mad.- still bringing in loads of yellow pollen together with white himalayan balsom. Still lots of forage about.
It's another beautiful day in the highlands. The earth is bone dry, my raspberries have gone mad producing new fruit and growth, the heather in the forest has dark green new growth and there are flowers on the cowberries, they usually flower in May. As the bees seem more active than normal for the time of year, will they be racing through their stores and will there still be lots of brood and new bees? I think we need to have a quick peek today. Trouble with having a bee house is we can't heft or the hive comes apart from the entrance.
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You'll just have to heft the entire bee house.
Late brood rearing is good imho. Lots of young bees to give the colony strength in spring (at the cost of some extra feeding).
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