The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Bees & Beekeeping => Topic started by: Beewyched on May 05, 2011, 12:25:44 pm
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How's everyone doing out there?
Bees have been, well, busy Bees - lots of tree pollen & the dandelions are opening up all over as the weather has been so unusually warm hot & dry.
I've decided to take a risk & let my number 1 hive go up to a brood & a 1/2 this year, unfortunately I've had to use new frames, so they will be a while building it up from scratch - so not sure if I'll get much honey from them this year, so may use it to make a nuc. But there's a good young queen in there & it looks like the weather this summer is going to be favourable to us beekeepers, even if the commercial farmers are living on their nerves at the mo.
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Have both my hives on brood and a half. Put supers on at weekend as Sycamore just starting here.
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Hiya Andrew :wave:
Great to find another beekeeper up here on TAS. I did join the local Association, but due to ill-health did not manage to get to any of the winter meets. Do you over-winter on a brood or brood & 1/2 up here? I was advised to keep them down over bad winters? Wondering if that's a Scottish or more of a "local" thing?
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No supers for us, but as we've only built a topbar hive so far, that should come as no surprise ;)
We did get a swarm to fill the topbar last week though, which seems to be settling in. I just have to try and keep my curiosity under control and not spend all day peering through the window at them.
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Wow - swarming in April :o mind, it has been unusually hot & dry & I think it caught a lot of keepers out - their loss is your gain anyways ;) ;D
It's amazing how much time you can waste flys by ;) (hehe) just watching them - so therapeutic.
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may beewyched :wave:
a swarm in may is worth a load of hay
a swarm in june is worth a silver spoon
a swarm in july isnt worth a fly
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I was actually helped by a member of Kilbarchan beekeepers to overwinter on a brood and half remove outside frames and replace with dummy boards in both boxes and give bees 8 frames in each box which enables them to form an eliptical brood nest. He has used this method on a sizeable number of hives for a number of years and only very infrequently has had any winter losses.
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I knew I should have gone to the winter meets ::) I always advise new keepers to - I should adhere to the old addage of "practise what you preach" ;)
Surprising the difference in regions (only been here for just over a year) - lots to learn from the seasoned folks who've adapted things slightly to meet the needs of their bees. Suprised mine survived the winter so well considering my southern, out of date methods :-\
Really will have to make an effort to get along - went along last summer & met some of the KBA - they're a lovely group.
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I agree it is a good idea to attend meetings and talk with other beekeepers, when you have the time. I heard a great talk by the FERA bee inspector, Andy Watton, called the 20 minute beekeeper, it was an excellent talk and shows methods to preempt the bees. For example, in an "out apairy" putting on not one super but two, the second super is placed above the crown board and one hole opened up in the crown board to allow bees through when they have filled the first super, this is useful in situations where you have not had time to react to their progress, i.e. in a good nectar flow.
This year I have experimented with just a wax strip at the top of the frames in my supers, three reasons:
a) allows me to include the comb in the honey, i.e. no foundation.
b) saves on foundation
c) keeps the bees too busy building comb, to think about swarming (not sure this is true!)
The downside of the above is that is cost more in terms of honey production for the bees to make their own comb, but I think they are calmer this year on balance. Has anyone else tried the above method in their supers?
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interesting you keep a brood and a half - have started doing two 'deeps' this year, as all the local boys seem to be adopting it to great success. I guess it makes sense to reduce swarming likelihood, but I do find it extra work! Have got extra supers on 2 out of 8 hives so far.
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Hi, I've just put my super on today as the bees seem to be working so hard and doing so well. Some of you may remember that I'm the idiot that alarmed everyone with 'dark sticky stuff' a couple of months ago and got some 'don't panic but you could have AFB' messages. It wasn't and all SEEMS to be going well. Hoping to pick up a swarm soon for my empty second hive.
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So - Got my first supers on yesterday - my bees have been so busy already!
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:wave:
It's been a wee bit too cold recently for me to go into mine - I knew I should have checked them during our mini heatwave last month ::)
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The OSR has come into flower half a mile away so the supers have gone on. But we lost a nucleus this week through starvation. Even though there was syrup in the nuke box it has been too cold around here for them to use it according to the bee inspector. We aren't seeing air temperatures over 10 yet.
Very annoying: she was a nice queen.
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I put a super on mine at the weekend. They have been very busy and packed it up to the brim!
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And we're still feeding our colonies. Lots of brood but no stores. This time last year we'd had our first swarm.
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The OSR has come into flower half a mile away so the supers have gone on. But we lost a nucleus this week through starvation. Even though there was syrup in the nuke box it has been too cold around here for them to use it according to the bee inspector. We aren't seeing air temperatures over 10 yet.
Very annoying: she was a nice queen.
Was that because you tried to over winter a neuc instead of uniting it or was it this years neuc ???
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We came through the winter with more strong colonies than we wanted so were going unite some of them. One of new group members then asked if she could have a nucleus, so that was the plan. We had warm dry weather in March, indeed drought, so we'd just got started when the drought broke and the temperature dropped.
The poor bees actually had sugar available within the box but had the frost caused them to cluster tightly together, it seems.
The local bee inspector has circulated a warning around the area about starvation. It's highly variable - some members are stacking up supers while the more exposed are feeding syrup by the gallon
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and we're still feeding the bees sugar solution.
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Wiltshire - put on some food - but they have all been out to day for the hedgerows
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It would be interesting to see where in the country everyone is, I belong the the Teifiside bee keepers and most of us are feeding still, looking forward to a poor honey season :(
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Maesgwyn, we belong to Llangadog bee keepers. OH added a supper on Sunday but we are going between very active days and nothing at all.
Sally
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Still waiting to get into mine for the first check of the year, the weather has been so bad for them this year - if it's not too windy, it's too wet or too cold ::)
I know they're ok, as I have spotted bees going in with pollen on the odd day they can get out & they are still taking down cake, so they're not starving. It's just a shame that the fruit trees are starting to blossom & the bees can't get out to them at the moment - I just hope the trees can hold-on to their flowers in this wind so the bees can pollinate them - looks like it could be a poor year for honey & fruit this year ::)
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Looks like it could be a lousy year for pollination in the orchard and honey production. We're still feeding and the colonies are confused. OH did an artificial swarm at the weekend on one, and the bugger swarmed anyway. So cold it only went about 2 metres, so out last night in the dusk collecting them in
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I agree it is a good idea to attend meetings and talk with other beekeepers, when you have the time. I heard a great talk by the FERA bee inspector, Andy Watton, called the 20 minute beekeeper, it was an excellent talk and shows methods to preempt the bees. For example, in an "out apairy" putting on not one super but two, the second super is placed above the crown board and one hole opened up in the crown board to allow bees through when they have filled the first super, this is useful in situations where you have not had time to react to their progress, i.e. in a good nectar flow.
This year I have experimented with just a wax strip at the top of the frames in my supers, three reasons:
a) allows me to include the comb in the honey, i.e. no foundation.
b) saves on foundation
c) keeps the bees too busy building comb, to think about swarming (not sure this is true!)
The downside of the above is that is cost more in terms of honey production for the bees to make their own comb, but I think they are calmer this year on balance. Has anyone else tried the above method in their supers?
Eventually I ran all my supers in fifty hive with a poured bead of wax and forsook about a pound of honey per frame to get them built . Like you say it did seem to hold back swarming .
I used to take cut comb from the unstained white capped frames inthe supers and the heavily stained honey was simplt cut out with an electric hot knife and dropped direct into a 4 x 3 x 2 foot home made easy B melter to melt and separate overnight .
To help the bees build new xcomb i used to feed four gallons of syrup per hive via a 3 inches deep water tight crown board that had a central hole up a three inch block of wood in the middle .
I used to drag a 45 gallon drum of syrup around on my trailer in a purpose made lay down cradle and 12 volt pump the syrup to the hive via a 50 foot 3/4 hose pipe