Winter 09: End of 1st season

Another Halloween is done and dusted; winter has well and truly arrived. Bar hefting my hive all that needed to be done for the bees are done: Feeding, Varroa teating and mouse guarding. Looking over my first season it has been an interesting year. I started thinking that I may have some honey, but soon realised that the colony must have its chance to build itself up before I shall see any surplus.

I have learned a lot from the bees and they have proved to be gentle and calm to work with. The pleasure of just watching the comings and goings of the bees in warm sunny days is something that everyone should experience. Every hive inspection reaffirm, for me, the meaning of "close to nature". The location of my hive has proved to be an excellent choice and I am expecting it to provide the kind of shelter spot that will be needed to see the colony through the winter.
Despite recent wet and much cooler days I have seen activities at the hive. They are still working! Only yesterday my wife and I saw quite a few bees bring pollen back to the hive. Its hard to see from where they are collecting the pollen.

If you have been following this blog through the year, thanks for reading, and thank you, to some of you, for leaving useful comments and suyggestiuons. If you are one of my freinds who were expecting honey this year- sorry you have to wait. Have a good winter, and this blog shall return in the new year.

Treatment number 2

The good Septembr weather is continuing, and I am taking advantage of it to do one more inspection of the hive. It is also time for the second and final treatment with another Apiguard.

Over the last 2 weeks I had a total varroa drop of 90. This gives an average varroa drop of about 6.4 per day, which is not bad I suppose. When I open the hive today the bees are calm and going about their business. On close inspection I found that the number has definitely grew. Leaving it alone for quite a number of weeks has helped. nearly all the frame, apart from three, are full of honey, and there are some signs of sealed brood cells, which means the queen is about and still laying.

In today's newspaper there is an item of the dreaded Asian honet. It would seems that the French is having a bad time of it. Needless to say we are thinking of when rather then if the little beasts will jump the Channel and get over here. I suppose we shall worry about that when it happens. 'Experts' reckon we have 10 years to get use to the idea. You can read about it here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/25/predatory-hornet-sighting-paris-france

Last week I bought some honey from a local beekeeper whoes bees are a mere one mile away. The honey is good so I am hoping that it's an indication what mine will be like. Can't wait.

They drop like...Varroas

Autumn is easing itself into our days. Since my last post I have checked my hive for Varroa drops. It'd shot up to 50 over a 6 day period. The counts before, over the similar period, was in low single figures. Clearly the hive has more of the natsy little mites then I though.

The Apigurad treatment is half way through its course. After this week I shall leave it for two weeks and do the same things one final time for another two week period. It would be interested to see what the drops will be. I want this hive to do well over winter. I may treat Varroa using sugar powder next year. The main problem with this non-chemical treatment (which I like) is that I am not sure now effective it is. I am getting mixed advice about this. Of course I want to go non-chemical, but I also want to be sure whatever method I use does the job. So far the Apiguard is working well - if the drop is anything to go by.

As always the September weather is strangely warm with occasional heavy rain. When the sun is out, like today, the bees are busy foraging. I can see many are still bringing in pollens. I am beginnig to feel that I should give the hive one more inspection just to be sure they are ok inside. The last time I look they had two empty frames in the brood box. The colony has not make enough honey so I am looking to increase my sugar bill this winter: sweet dreams.

This is an Eke

What, you may asked, is an eke? Today I install one in my hive. It's basically a square wooden frame- I made mine yesterday. The purpose of the eke is to create a space, above the brood box, into which you can place an Apiguard which is for treating the colony for the dreaded varroa. I am more or less leaving the hive alone at the moment though I am not quite sure if I should inspect it again before the air turns really cold.

We are now in the middle of September as usual we are having all kind of weather: last week it was cold and couldy last week, but this week we are having an Indian summer. Since I was told that Apigurad works best when the air temperature is 15 degree C or above I thought it's time I decide whether I will treat the bees or not. After much though I decided to do so because as one experienced fellow beekeeper pointed out should the number of varroa increases over winter (it's a really possibility) the colony will get really stressed out. Once agian keeping bees is rather like having children- sometime your are damn if you do and damn if you don't. In any case I though I should at lease treat the hive this season and see how things go. My main concern is that the colony should survive this winter, and be in good condition when next spring comes.

While cleaning the hive today I got some honey on my hive tool. We have a tiny little taste and it's good. Well for this season at least all the honey ( about 4 frames) are going to the hard working colony. We shall see what next years brings. My fingers are firmly crossed.

The leaves are turning borwn

A weeks ago I attended a meeting at our divisional apiary. It occupies a large green space amid an urban residential area which is ideal for bees. At the mreting novice beekeepers were told it's time to prepare our bees for winter. Looking at the warm sunny afternoon it was hard to believe that my first beekeeping season is already ending . We were advised to treat our hives for varroas, and to start feeding the hive.

Prior to the meeting I inspected my hive and decided to remove the super, which the bees had hardly touched since I installed it a month ago. As I didn't get my nuc till mid June I am assuming that the colony is too busy building itself up to strength to start on the super. In spite of the empty super I could see that the brood box is in good shape. There are many sealed cells and honey store which means that the queen is laying, and the worker bees had been working hard collecting. It's difficult to judge how much the colony had grown over the last two and half months. I estimated it has double in size, which means that it now numbers at around 8 to 10 thousand bees. I saw no drones throughout this inpection which is yet another sign of the season coming to an end. My son (photo) helped me to remove the frames from the super. Where previously he was only allow to watch this time he had a great time getting to do something with the hive.

Followed the meeting at the apiary I immediately made up a sugar solution for the bees. Yesterday I checked and saw the feed has all but gone, so I mad up another feed. When I poured the solution into the feeder I noted the bees are much less active. Yes, autumn is here.

Back from hoiliday

I have been away for the last two weeks - on holiday up North. That's me (photo) laying on a rock pool, trying to catch a crab for the children. So first thing I had to do this morning was hive inspection. I didn't update this blog after my last inspection (31/7) and when I looked at my record today I saw that there had been a gap of 22 days between the last two inspections.

Disappointingly frames in the super remain largely untouched. There is some very minor effort of drawing out, otherwise no change since the last inspection.

In the bood box things are looking better. Only the end frames still need to be fully drwan out. All the others are heavy with honey. Frame 6 to 10 have many sealed cells. I spent a fair bit of time watching a young bee emerging from its cell. It is a really pleasure to see nature at work. The Queen was busy as usual running around I have yet actually seen her lays an egg. She must have been busy other wise there wouldn't be so many bees. I have now learnt to place the frame very close to mty face and by peering over my galsses I could see the cells much better.

The plan now is to allow the colony to build up its strength for winter. I am not expecting any surplus honey this year. This will be a disappointment to all those freinds who are expecting a jar, but I think given that I did not get the bees till the middle of June , and the wet summer weather, it would be very lucky indeed to have any surplus. The big test now is to make sure the colony will survive the winter.

Bees hanging out

Last Wednesday I went to a local neighbourhood policing meeting. We discussed the problem of groups, (usually youths) hanging around outside each other's house. I couldn't help think this is exactly what my bees do.

I have been  observing the hive at different times of the day. It is noticeable that the bees are more active (as expected) at certain times of the day. In mid-afternoon, and when the air temperature is high it is then a large number of bees appear to be just 'hanging out'. At their most vigorous mode the hustle and bustle outside the hive must resemble some kind of rush hour traffic.

Before I had the bees I had always assumed they will come and go very much like planes do at an airport. What I had not expected is this 'hanging out' together. When they do this many bees would just be milling around outside the entrance seemingly just chilling out. Maybe there is something we don't know about honey bees.