I weigh my hives front and rear - rope and digital scales. 5 minutes/hive. (Only at this time of year and early spring)
Good way to tell if they are needing to be fed etc.
I weigh my hives front and rear - rope and digital scales. 5 minutes/hive. (Only at this time of year and early spring)
Good way to tell if they are needing to be fed etc.
But as Bridget says, not possible with a tunnel-type entrance through the bee house wall. At least whilst the bees are still flying. Once they're pretty-much clustered you can do it.
I went through a couple of boxes in my bee shed last week. Fondant being taken down well - about 50% of the 12.5 kg gone I would guess - and good levels of sealed and open brood. Nucs looked particularly good. I think there are a couple more to check sometime in the next fortnight but then that's it for the season.
After that it's processing all that lovely honey ... should take about 10 minutes from this summer's crop
I've never managed hefting. My colonies are on different hive types and in different configurations - so how do I know what is a good weight? I look, check that they have enough honey stores; and then feeding them and leave them with candy or fondant over winter in case they need it.
My winter feeding regime still needs improvement. I'm not too sure about it. I thought I'll try and follow C4U's example this year, but I don't think I managed. Mostly the bees ignored the foundation frames, and filled the rest chock and block with syrup to the point that, in some colonies, I'm worried about space for the queen to lay.
Kitta
Where did you put the foundation frames? They are still drawing them for fun here. They should be interspersed (not two together) in the middle of the nest.Originally Posted by Mellifera Crofter
Only reason I can think of that they would not draw those is if the colony is on the small side, but even then they do SOME.
If you are just looking in from the top you might not be seeing what they have done as, in some colonies, they can extend the shoulders of the old combs a bit and you don't see much on the former foundation frames from the top, but they have done them just the same.
Have some that have drawn and filled or even laid in up to 7 bars of foundation in the last fortnight, albeit 3 or 4 being more normal. About 60% of our colonies are stuffed wall to wall with bees and these can do surprising things even this late.
Gavin:- What are these fields with a brassica crop in them, looks like mustard but now flowering white and with occasional light purple flowering plants too? The bees are going nuts on it on sunny days. Nucs nearby have put on weight in October!
Tried it on a few colonies last year and can honestly say that it's changed my whole approach at this time of year, there's now a couple of extra months of 'useful' work Quite simply, I was blind to the full potential previously but I'd definitely suggest that you persevere with it in future years.
Thanks, C4U and Prakel. I think I was too timid in placing the frames, C4U. I've added them about second or third from the outside of the box, and they've ignored them. The colonies are strong. I've removed the ApiVar strips today from a few more colonies, and moved the foundation to the centre of the box, or right next to the frames with brood in them (none had more than two frames of brood, and only small patches; and some were without brood). I'll go back in a couple of weeks and check whether they've used them. If not, I'll remove them so that they can get on with winter, and then try again next year.
Kitta
Not made clear is if you are actively feeding. This practice is ONLY to be done while actively feeding in autumn.....no flow, either natural or artificial and no wax will be drawn.....but then its the same any time. They are most unlikely, in rural Aberdeenshire, to draw wax on a natural flow at this time.
It is getting pretty back endish for doing it wood up here now, though this afternoon Jolanta reported seeing 6 full newly drawn combs in a Smith only fed on Friday. Will work in poly for another couple of weeks....then just don't do it any more up here unless you really know what you are doing.
Last edited by Calluna4u; 10-10-2016 at 06:40 PM.
I'm feeding them, C4U. I was going to stop because they have a lot of frames with stores in them, but after reading your post I've decided to move the foundation frames to the centre and continue feeding a bit longer longer. I'll keep an eye on them and remove the frame if it's too late now.
Kitta
Being obsessive, I weighed all my hive parts, frames etc...
We've always put the extracted frames back on and as we run double brood without QE in summer we put some extracted frames on top and and swapped others into the lower BB. Some were quite damaged from the heather honey extracting (seemed more difficult this year, maybe because all the blossom honey that sits on the bottom had been used up during the bad weather spell). Anyway most of them nicely tidied up, repaired and redrawn and honey moved down so it was back down to one broodbox and fondant on this weekend. Fondant on now because we didn't like to feed syrup while the wets were on top. We had intended to get them to draw new foundation with syrup as we are always short of drawn foundation in early summer but it didn't quite work out this year.
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