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  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #9906  by MickBBKA
 28 Jan 2021, 22:23
I have a colony that went into Winter on 2 brood boxes and 3 under supers. So I decided they must have reduced by quite a bit by now and thought I would take away the empty supers as dead space. Duh...The bees still cover 2 brood and 2 supers and weigh a ton so just left them as they were. They must have whacked in a load of ivy or something.

Hazel and Alder almost finished and snowdrops out. Its been either sub zero or pouring with rain for the last 6 weeks and never seen a bee leave the hive in the garden and they are the warmest of my apiaries. I will start pollen subs in next 2 weeks I think.
 #9934  by Alfred
 02 Feb 2021, 12:40
Tropical 9 degrees by 10 am with little paper umbrella in tea mug after inspection
It was a joy to watch them busy outside after the cold spell.
All hive hefting goodly (apart from the fondant only fed one's which were unnervingiy light)
Some colonies were finding pollen from somewhere which was good but I'd topped each hive up with 1/4 kg of candipoline just in case
 #9935  by NigelP
 02 Feb 2021, 14:09
Wow Alfred! You haven't just moved to southern Spain or somewhere semi tropical recently????.....We woke up to 1 inch of snow and heavy snowfall until lunchtime, when it turned to rain and is now a mixture of snow and slush. Max temp of 2C with a wind chill making if feel like -2C.
Nevertheless I could see my bees were bringing in nectar and pollen like there was no tomorrow....then unfortunately I woke up from my afternoon nap.
Brrrrrrr it's damn cold up here and staying that way for the next several days
 #9937  by Steve 1972
 02 Feb 2021, 16:52
I wish i lived where Alfred resides..i could not go to work today as the sleet and rain was so bad which it has been for weeks now..everywhere is flooded..so i took the dogs for a walk on the beach and got soaked in the process..while there i found this poor thing that must have drowned in the flood waters that carried it out to the sea that washed it up on the beach..i must say i have found some strange things on the beach over the years but never a dead sheep...


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 #9938  by Alfred
 02 Feb 2021, 17:08
mmmmmmm.
Enjoy that mutton stew Steve.
Whenever our resident deer population starts to become a nuisance to the gentry ,very soon the local has venison back on the menu.... :?:


Yes it was a glorious morning ,sun on my back ,mug in my hand and all of nature impatient to burst into bloom
I stood watching those bees with delight.
This is what it's all about :D
 #9943  by AdamD
 04 Feb 2021, 09:29
Yesterday was fairly mild so I did peep at a couple of nucs by lifting the crownboards; the bees were nicely clustered and I could feel the warmth from them on my hand. I also looked at the feeders on a couple of Abelo mini-plus hives. The fondant that I had put in the feeders had become damp and sticky, so a few bees were stuck in it and had died. I'll have to think of a better way of feeding these little hives for next winter.
 #10032  by MickBBKA
 19 Feb 2021, 00:02
Tuesday I drained the water and changed out the black rotten outer frames from my Abelo poly hives.
Put pollen sub test amount on all colonies to see which take it and topped up fondant as required.
Checked all colonies for stores,
No loses so far and bees look in fantastic shape, 2 colonies with 2019 queens cover 2 brood and 3 under supers wall to wall with bees. God knows what they will be like come April. Probably swarmed and gone. LOL.

So far it looks like my decision to write off 2020 in July after the worst Summer ever here and concentrate on getting the bees into the best shape for 2021 is working. I just hope Spring doesn't mug the bees. Praying for West winds in March.
 #10034  by Alfred
 19 Feb 2021, 13:48
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Adam I don't know the layout of your abeilos but for my Maisemore nucs I made a pespex-ish crownboard that fits precisely inside the additional super .
The fondant goes on the frametops followed by the board then a similarly shaped thick chunk of kingspan to reduce the deadspace above.
(The picture also shows a slotted feeder board which I ended up not using)
I feared the standard feeder would hide the fondant from hungry bees but this setup worked well.
 #10039  by NigelP
 19 Feb 2021, 18:20
Phew..... Mick you had me worried for a moment...me thinks you need you need to scrape your hive edges. The propolis build up can act like matchsticks and allows water ingress. Mine were all fine, bar one (where I hadn't scraped).
Although, like everything else, frames frames were damp due to the damp wet winter we are having/had.
 #10048  by Patrick
 20 Feb 2021, 16:29
Finally got round to trying the tub of ultra bee pollen sub. After trawling the various recipes and mixes suggested online, as usual went a slightly different way and just used some warmed feeder honey and just added ultra bee powder up to to make a thick fudge like consistency. Left it overnight to thicken and slapped it between a double over sheet of baking paper. I accept my version probably has a higher protein proportion than some mixes, which use a lot of sugar.

Tried a bit and it tastes remarkably similar to bee bread. Hope the bees will think the same. Will try and get some on when it stops raining long enough.

Not expecting a massive response but if the spring is poor like 2019 it could be an interesting experiment to see if the sub colonies are any stronger than the others. If it’s a warm and dry spring, I suspect the difference will be negligible. Let’s find out..
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