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Thread: todays news

  1. #3881

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    I had thought that the lime was over here for this year but, clearing supers at a site in N Fife last night, found some yellow-green stuff which I had to taste. It isn't minty but definitely like citrus lime (no relation). Gather a few bunches of flowers and make a tea with boiling water (5 mins steeping) and you'll get the idea. Feckless drone also reports it is still in flower in parts of Dundee.
    Interesting, it is very much still in flower around Aberdeenshire. Thanks for your earlier reply btw.

    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    There is oodles of Japanese knotweed there which I hope might give me a crop some year.
    AMMs foraging on a non-native invasive plant!?

  2. #3882

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    I had thought that the lime was over here for this year but, clearing supers at a site in N Fife last night, found some yellow-green stuff which I had to taste. It isn't minty but definitely like citrus lime (no relation). Gather a few bunches of flowers and make a tea with boiling water (5 mins steeping) and you'll get the idea. Feckless drone also reports it is still in flower in parts of Dundee.

    There is oodles of Japanese knotweed there which I hope might give me a crop some year. Not in flower yet, but all the best colonies are on their way to the hills tonight. Nearly done with the heather shift.

    Been waiting in for a delivery that (doh!) hasn't even been dispatched yet! Oh well, beekeeping in the evening is definitely the way to go, these days anyway. Someone is about to lose a Buckfast swarm (best thing for them!). Some bees are sniffing about the empty boxes at the back of the house and some have diverted in here, smelling bee stuff in here too.
    Wont be mines Gavin...all ours are away from your area.

    There is the new bee farm started up based not far from you that have a few hundred Buckfast hives however.............have seen some of them. If you think them losing their bees is the best thing you don't want honey...I have seen some of these and they are doing sensationally. One set are on their THIRD Dadant DEEP (ABOVE the broodnest..so four high) on the bell/ling in Glenshee already! 2 full Dadant deeps? That's some crop! and they are piling it in. Must confess to envious looks. They may just be some of the best outsourced stock I have seen in a long time.

  3. #3883
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    I came home to a kitchen full of the wee devils. Not exactly full, but quite a few. They were on a raiding party rather than a swarming attempt. *Very* glad the weather has broken as I think I'll have to close the windows for a while. Are they really that close?

    Another bee farm in the crowded territory that we use just seems .... well, not right. I have a hard enough time finding decent sites as it is away from the existing bee farmers.

    Any chance you'd get envious of this near Amm stock?! The first time I've had to use a box to stand on to get supers on and off. OK, not all are like this but many have been really strong this year.


  4. #3884
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Feckless Drone View Post
    What's that word?

    Thinking about how to describe that feeling when opening up the bait hive to see what happened to the decent sized swarm .....
    In my part of Scotland it would have been two words: 'Yah beauty!!'.

    I think I now have the last Buckfast out of the house. When setting off yesterday I discovered the main reason for all the bee interest. I'd forgotten that I'd left a brood box with honey in the truck and the side windows open. Must have been about half a super's worth of bees distributed along the Carse as I stopped repeatedly to let more out. Leaving the house unguarded, they turned their attention indoors. Suspect I'll be looking out for netting and gaffer tape to get though this last extraction in the house before transferring to a new honey house.

    Cracking lightning show last night - and a remarkable transition from bone dry to torrential downpour just as I pulled off the road with foam closures and hive tool beside me. Maybe I'll get them locked in and away tonight instead. That monster colony might have cleared its supers by then too. There are so many bees in there - and brood too - that I expect it will rebuild to a decent stack on the ling too. Especially with the ground now dampened to some extent.

    About 10 mm of rain in Dundee last night but as much of it came down in a short space of time it felt like a lot more.

    G.

    PS the continuously updated SEPA site for rainfall is currently showing 31.4 mm for Gella Bridge in Glen Clova (not that I have bees in that particular glen) so that should help the forage up there.
    Last edited by gavin; 28-07-2018 at 03:15 PM.

  5. #3885
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jambo View Post
    AMMs foraging on a non-native invasive plant!?
    I know. They have just no shame. Himalayan balsam, Japanese knotweed, sometimes giant hogweed, certainly sycamore, coneflower (taking over parts of the Tay), just about anything in a garden or sown by a farmer. Scold them as I might they *still* proceed with their unethical foraging choices. What can a man do?!

    Anyone who thinks that beekeeping is some environmentally friendly activity that benefits the environment needs their ..... oops, sorry, shouldn't go there! But bumble bees are just as bad, aren't they?

  6. #3886
    Senior Member fatshark's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Feckless Drone View Post
    Thinking about how to describe that feeling when opening up the bait hive to see what happened to the decent sized swarm, that is definitely not mine, of very mild mannered bees that arrived at the end of June, to see that they have drawn out and laid 6 frames worth in a beautiful pattern, then you find the Q who looks gorgeous and even better now with a red dot on her.
    Whatever the word is it's the antonym of the feeling you get when you're set up to extract 20+ full supers on a wet weekend and you realise you've run out of honey buckets and Thorne's of Newburgh closed an hour ago.

    D'oh!

  7. #3887
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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    The first time I've had to use a box to stand on to get supers on and off. OK, not all are like this but many have been really strong this year.
    It's got so bad this year I keep a step ladder permanently in the apiary. I'm afraid these are not Amm's.

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  8. #3888

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    Quote Originally Posted by gavin View Post
    I know. They have just no shame.


    In other news I'm positive I saw drones kicked out this weekend. Murray reporting same on the other place... A bit early isn't it?

    I'm still surrounded by hay fields (cut) which are white with clover, so am I wrong to be hopeful some more might come in this week as the weather improves again? In fields that haven't been cut the clover is now turning brown.

  9. #3889

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    probably got home late after an afternoon down the next door hive and found their suitcases on the doorstep

    Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

  10. #3890

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    Flew past who knows how many fields on the way home and didn't even bother their abdomens to pick up some pollen.

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