Hi - its been a really good year from my perspective (good yields and learning lots) despite the fact that in Tayside we had a horrendous June gap. Early season weather and hence crop was good, and I worked on getting freshly drawn comb to replace old stuff and help with chalkbrood. That gave me a good start and so also ran with a few colonies on double brood for awhile. Almost lost a couple of strong colonies in June after taking off the OSR honey but emergency feeding saved the day. My swarm control this year was exclusively the nucleus method of removing the old Q. Pretty sure that only 1 swarm emanated from my colonies in May - and I caught it in the apiary. Got 16/20 mated Qs from end May to end June that look OK despite poor weather when Qs were first due to fly. Qs did take along time to get going this year, with most starting laying 4-5 weeks after emergence. Nothing appeared in bait hives, called to two swarms, 1 Q-less and I missed the Q in other.
I thought the colonies looked a bit on the weak side for the heather but again, they did well in the Angus glens where the bell heather went on for at least 5-6 weeks. Colonies going into winter look strong so fingers crossed. All but 1 colony seems very well behaved. The one that is a concern is full of runners, did not do much re honey and the Q is unmarked and not clipped cause she out sprinted me every time. The running makes it really difficult to inspect - so that Q will not be bred from next year. A pity because they are the darker bee that I prefer,
Difficult to be accurate with honey yield because I am not that efficient at extraction, try to get alot of sections and cut comb. Some of the honey this year was too high in water content, and has been fed back to the bees. Overall I am somewhere close to 40 lbs per hive actually extracted and kept. Sold most of it but still a few buckets tucked away. Forage and conditions seemed to work out pretty well for OSR, sycamore, lime and bramble. Little willowherb as judged by only small amounts of that distinctive pollen.
Big lessons - stick with nucleus method of swarm control, make sure there is lots of fully drawn fresh comb available (no Q-cells tucked into eaten away corners makes life a bit easier), pay more attention to level of stores in large colonies.
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