Hello Everyone and as the title says, “HAPPY (very bee-lated) NEW YEAR!” from Kat and I!
We’ve had a fantastic few weeks of seeing different family members, eating copious amounts of their food and drinking far too much of their drink! We have finally arrived home, slightly worse for wear, but happy to have seen everyone. The honey and beeswax based presents I gave everyone seem to have gone down well, I hope those of you that bought the gift boxes received the same happy results.
Over the festive period I found myself talking to Kat’s father quite a bit about beekeeping. He is still umming and arring about it as there’s a lot of commitment involved and he’s a bit nervous about the stinging ability of the buzzers. I’ve given him a few YouTube channels to watch, notably The Norfolk Honey Company videos which are made by a very knowledgeable man called Stewart Spinks and Black Mountain Honey who is probably my favourite YouTube beekeeper currently due to how ‘to the point’ Lawrence Edwards is.
I’ve also recommended (as I do to everyone) that he does a beginner’s course with his local BBKA group. The course usually comes with a year’s membership which gives access to LOTS of benefits (including public liability insurance) as well as support from extremely experienced beekeepers. I’ve decided that I’m going to treat him to the course this spring because I am super generous and also I’m planning to have nearly 40 colonies by the end of this year, so I’m hoping that he will repay me with manpower, come the honey pull.
So now that I am slightly doughier than last year and have driven family and friends alike mad with bee talk, what have I been up to in January?
Well for one, Apiary 2 was in an absolute state and I needed to finish off the allotment apiary that I’ve been putting off. Nature, although needed in vast amounts, has decided to grow some trip hazards for me to contend with and some of my hives have been invaded by long grass and weeds. Thankfully it was a particularly cold and wet day on the 9th of Jan (surprisingly hard to find this winter) so I decided to do the clearing while I knew the bees wouldn’t come out to see what I was up to. Clearing weeds and digging in a bee suit is not an easy task…
First thing I did was close all of the hive entrances, just in case the noise I was making stirred some girl’s curiosity. I cleared some more space around the edges as things were getting a bit cramped for my poor girls and pulled up any brambles and weeds that had made their home under the hives and amongst the wood chippings. I also dug up the clumps of “hard” grass (think it’s called 'common spike rush' but I’m no Horticulturist) that were causing me issues in august. Sadly, normal “lawn” grass has taken over the area and made its home in the wood chippings a laid last winter. The only way to get rid of it all is to spray it with chemicals and I don’t want to risk that with the girls so close by. Fortunately, it can be easily cut with a lawn mower and I’m guessing Ian (the Head Gardener) won’t mind me borrowing his every so often.
Looking back at the pictures from a year ago, I find it incredible to see how much everything has grown. The space that was originally cleared had shrunk so much; I’m surprised that the hives hadn’t been completely overgrown. After I had finished, I opened up all of the entrances only realising that maybe I should have worn a beesuit after clumps of curious bees came trundling out… oops… (unfortunately the video below doesn't do that statement justice)
No doubt some of the weeds will make a reappearance even after all my hard work, as that is what they do, but hopefully the work I’ve done will keep things a bit less dangerous for when I’m moving a lot of heavy honey laden boxes about in summer. With that done, I checked on how much fondant the bees had left and how many were still alive for that matter.
17/17 colonies still going strong surprisingly and we’re almost halfway through the cold period which is phenomenal. Kat & I are delighted. The national average of winter losses (colonies that die out over October - March) was 17.3% last year (2019-2020) so I was expecting at least one loss by now given the unseasonably warm weather. You wouldn’t expect it, but bees survive better in autumn and winter when it is cold, 4°C being the optimum wintering temperature. They conserve their energies and food stores as they spend their time huddled up together in a cluster at the centre of the hive, vibrating their wings every so often to keep warm, the queen even stops laying as raising new bees is very energy intensive.
When it is warm like it has been, the bees make themselves busy wandering around the hive, doing bits and bobs, flying about to see if there’s any food around (which generally there isn’t in winter). Pretty much just wasting their resources with little to gain. Annoyingly the queen keeps laying too and the bees keep feeding the brood. The break in brood rearing usually helps reduce the amount of varroa mites in the hive naturally, as they can only reproduce in sealed brood cells, ready for the spring increase. With the constant production of bees in warm weather the varroa mites can increase exponentially, causing all sorts of problems in spring.
We’d usually do an oxalic dribble treatment about this time of year to kill off any varroa hanging about on the bee’s backs but as there are capped brood cells, its best to wait for a bit. The 21-day forecast has predicted some really cold days in February which may knock the queens off laying for a few weeks. Ample time for all the new bees to emerge and there to be no capped cells, meaning the varroa are all vulnerable to treatments. So, I guess watch this space for the February post being about the oxalic dribble… hopefully I won’t get stung on the bum again this time…
As for the food, each colony (Nucs and Hives) have all burned through 2Kg of fondant already, our family favourites Laura and SWOM have gone through 3Kg each! Laura has always been a hard-working hive so I’m not too surprised with how much she’s been eating. But as we caught SWOM last year as a swarm in the back garden, I had no idea what she was like winter wise, I’m going to keep a close eye on her for spring as I foresee her exploding in March and I don’t want to watch her disappearing in the same manner as we got her.
Last weekend (15th Jan) I, with the help of my friend Andrew, finally moved bees to the Allotment apiary, which was exciting as I’ve been working hard to get it ready for my queen rearing this season. We moved Siddy, Hayley, Louise, Wembeeley and SWOM 2: ‘The reswoming’ to their new homes. For those unsure of these queens (I guess it’s hard to keep track), Siddy, Hayley and Louise are queens I successfully reared last year and Wembeeley and SWOM 2 are swarms that I collected last summer from around the St Helens area. I’m not going to lie, it was touch and go during some moments as the double nucs that I made last year were struggling to fit in the car. With some serious pondering we realised that if we took out the insulation and fondant blocks from under the roof it would give us JUST enough space to get it in the boot.
We also noticed such a difference in weight when lifting the hives. The Wembeeley/SWOM 2 double Nuc was so light compared to the other one housing Hayley/Louise. We genuinely struggled to pick up the latter let alone manoeuvre it into a space barely big enough to fit. The biggest surprise was that Siddy, which is in a poly Nuc on her own, almost weighted as much as the Wembeeley/SWOM 2 double nuc. Either Siddy is incredibly strong (quite likely) or the swarms are struggling. I’ll keep an eye on it when I do the oxalic dribble next month.
I will be using Siddy as the queen rearing hive of the apiary as she is an overwintered Nuc and will hopefully be flying out of winter super strong, and the other four will be providing resources to create nucs for the newly hatched queens to go in. I’ll explain it all in April when I’m actually starting to raise queens and make up Nucs but until then, please enjoy the pictures I’ve taken throughout the Allotment apiary journey. If you’re getting into beekeeping this year and want a Nuc of bees then please get in touch and I’ll make you one or more to order once the season starts =)
That’s it for January news, not much is going on other than maintenance and building more frames which isn’t super exciting.
I hope you’re all safe and well,
Greg
Comentarios