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  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #8874  by Steve 1972
 13 Sep 2020, 19:57
I went to the Alnwick Apiary today with all intentions to deploy Apitraz on five colonies..that plan went out of the window as two colonies are still capping supers and i did not want to remove them yet...i could have opened the pack and treated three but the product i have is nearly out of date and stuck in the bottom of the fridge where i do not want to store a opened pack for another week or two..so i decided to vape the lot of them with 2grm of oxalic acid mix to tide them over till next week when i can hopefully remove the supers and give them the Amitraz strips..i also topped the feeders up on three of them without honey supers..
 #8880  by Chrisbarlow
 14 Sep 2020, 15:05
Checked my one colony on the Heather. It's not heavy. Heather certainly still in flower, will be bringing back this coming week to ten days. Suspect there won't be much Heather honey to take off.
 #8883  by NigelP
 14 Sep 2020, 19:56
Its the frustration of heather honey hunting. It's very unpredictable....after many years of seeking the stuff have come to several conclusions....if the weather is pants and the bees can't fly....you're stuffed. The nectar can turn off despite the heather being in flower and you are stuffed. This year is a new curved ball...the lousy August weather has delayed it (we hope fingers crossed). Will know for sure in a few days time or again we are stuffed.
Although I still reckon it will be a poor harvest.
We had a couple of halcyon years three to four years ago...was averaging over 60lb per hive,,,not this time....frustrating,..
 #8884  by AdamD
 15 Sep 2020, 13:52
I moved a colony that had been robbed - a month ago it was a double brood colony and doing well. It had a high varroa load and was treated with apiguard. Now it still has a lot of bees with deformed wings, the queen but no brood and no food. It is now down to one brood box and will have to do well to strengthen for winter. After a few days of feeding, I might give it a vape or another dose of apiguard to ensure that the varroa have finally gone.
In it's place I have left a hive with the empty frames from the second brood box with a dribble of syrup in, so the robbers learn that the hive is now empty and give up. It looks like ivy has started to flower so foragers will finally have some proper foraging to do rather than nicking food from the girls next door.
 #8896  by NigelP
 17 Sep 2020, 16:22
Went and put clearer boards on my hives on the heather. They have gained weight in the last two weeks of good weather, but still not a great harvest, varying from a few frames per per hive to around 40lbs/hive in one or two of the better colonies.
Heather has mainly gone over now and few bees were flying despite it being bright warm and sunny. Collect supers tomorrow and bring hives back on Saturday ready for varroa treatments and winter feeding.
 #8898  by pingping
 17 Sep 2020, 18:33
Treated all colonies with formic acid solution. It took about an hour prep and application. There is such a rush for Ivy and something else (bright orange pollen) the bees don't stop foraging.

Checked brood in 2 and shuffled to give laying space, which they will need as the last of the feed boosts the queen.

Take the pads and applicator frames off again tomorrow and remove the eke supers.
 #8915  by AdamD
 19 Sep 2020, 11:17
Mid week, one hive at my home apiary had no open brood and no sign of the old clipped and marked queen despite going through twice, although signs of a queen were there as ther were polished cells where the queen would be expected to lay. And a possible broken down queencell. As the old queen was slowing down in any case and as the colony isn't huge, I popped a frame of brood in to double check for the presence of a queen - and to boost numbers. Today there are no queencells but I saw an-unmarked and un-clipped queen; she walked a few inches and then hid under some bees and buried her head in a cell. I will be pleasantly surprised if she mates. TIme will tell.
 #8918  by NigelP
 19 Sep 2020, 13:19
As long as there are drones about.....my garden hives have them but the ones on the moors got rid of theirs in the bad August weather. I have a queen cell in a nuc due to emerge this week so I've also got fingers crossed.

Finished bringing hives back from the moors this morning. I always amazed at how fast they settle into their new environment. Ones I brought back late yesterday where piling in the balsam pollen this morning....almost no interruption to service and been there less than 20hours.
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