Big surprise today. Went to my out apiary to retrieve some old hives to discover that two of them are occupied by a small colony each - both busy bringing in loads of ivy pollen. Now got to feed them both and see if we can get them to over winter.
Big surprise today. Went to my out apiary to retrieve some old hives to discover that two of them are occupied by a small colony each - both busy bringing in loads of ivy pollen. Now got to feed them both and see if we can get them to over winter.
In the west end of Dundee, there has been lots of pollen gathering - I reckon most of it is from gum trees that have been in flower for a week or so, then some ivy coming in as well. The botanic gardens, and a few homes around the place have gum trees that are native to Tasmania so pretty hardy.
I think Edinburgh botanics also have a good collection of gum trees.
Flying bees again today hope they are not munching all their stores :]
Seems a bit quiet on the forum at the moment ?
The queen should have finished her laying by now so seems a good time to zap the mites in the next few days. Still getting the odd flying bees around. Have not seen any pollen coming in so perhaps they are bringing in water. Huge temperature variations at the moment from minus 4.0 to plus 14.0. Hope its not going to follow last years pattern with all the disruption that caused.
Queens certainly haven't finished laying in bonny Fife. Pollen being piled in today and a quick peek recently showed quite a lot of eggs and young larvae. Today was warm and it's predicted to get a lot cooler pretty soon.
Met Office has a neat comparison of climate site and this is what the minimum temperature comparison between Stranraer and Sidmouth looks like ... assuming you're both where you say you are (and who can tell on the internet?).
Stranraer_climate_information_-_Met_Office.jpg
Nothing behind the comment at all ... the "assuming you're where you say you are" is an oblique reference to "On the internet nobody knows you're a dog".
Internet_dog.jpg
Wikipedia tells me the "Jurassic Coast" is Exmouth to Studland Bay ... I put Exmouth into the Met Office website and it returns Sidmouth as the closest climate station. You don't know whether I'm really in Fife*
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* I am
November to the beginning of January is usually the best time to find hives broodless here*, it could be later this year after such a nice October / beginning of November. I used to poke about with my bees endlessly to satisfy curiosity, nowadays I prefer them to prosper and make me honey.
*here being lower teifi valley
Which of course is right and unquestionably sensible, but equally it's wise to build up a body of personal knowledge about what happens in our own hives rather than relying on authorative comments from people who often then go on to say that actually, they'd never open their boxes during the period that they're referring to.... Too much of that sort of nonsense going on.
I often wonder how many inefficient oxalic treatments are being made because people are missing their best window of opportunity through sheer ignorance of their own stock. Locally, early December appears to be a popular time for trickle treatment when, unless my bees are really unusual and out of sync with all the others, I know that the end of the first week of January would probably be a much better time to make a 'blind' treatment. But they don't listen to me, I'm just the mad man (some days more so than others ).
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