BBKA Forum

British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • What have you done today bee-related?

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #11554  by NigelP
 23 Jul 2021, 16:57
Called usurpation when one colony "evicts" another. Very common in the states with Africanised bees which will take over hives.
Nice to see it does occur in the UK. Well documented and photographed Alfred. . It might be more common than we think....I have notes on a hive I was re queening this year and when I got a laying queen I found she was already marked....so where did she come from! Or am I getting more senior moments :D

Flow over in my part of the world for the moment. Bees are robbing and mobbing any open supers as I check through hives preparing more to take to the heather. Many don't make the cut as not strong enough, some are nearly there and have received donations of brood from other hives.
I try to work on 1 frame of stores, 1 frame of pollen and 9 frames of brood per hive for the heather. I drop all my doubles into single brood so usually have plenty of brood frames to share around.
 #11555  by JoJo36
 23 Jul 2021, 18:17
Nigel
How long are the hives left on the heather moor?
How many supers do you usually get on each hive?
Is the honey superior to 'normal' countryside stuff??!!
 #11556  by NigelP
 23 Jul 2021, 19:32
All variable JoJO. Heather is a fickle crop, you need to be adaptable to weather conditions etc. We have had 2 bad years due to atrocious weather in August. Averaged less than 5lbs per hive last year. A good year 60lb plus per good hive (best ever was 120lb plus for one hive). Yields tend s to be proportional to strength and age of foragers....can and is very difficult to judge beforehand. I'm still learning. Usually go early August and bring back early/mid September. But it's early this year so getting all hives there by end of next week.
Honey is thixotropic in character, sets as gel until stirred when it becomes liquid. This makes extracting it problematic as it can't really be spun out and you need to press out and lose your hard won drawn super comb.. Although heather honey looseners exist in various forms for the unwary.
Honey is a dark amber colour and totally unique in taste and flavour. its one of the few honeys that smell of the flowers it comes from.
It's liquid gold.
Lots of myth and mythology about it as well. mainly wrong. You need strong hives, good weather and heather in flower. The only consistent is heather always flowers :D.
Bees hate working it as they have to crawl over the flowers rather than fly to floret after floret. And the heather is covered in cobwebs that the bees have to fight their way through each morning. It's hard work for them, hence need for strong hives that will come back considerably weakened.
It's a lot of hard work (both for bees and beekeepers) with moving hives at unsocial hours, but the unique aroma arising out freshly opened hives after a few weeks on the moors is one of beekeeping ultimate highs. The low is opening them after a few weeks to find no honey stored at all (see last 2 years :D).
I feel sorry for those who don't have the opportunity (or inclination) to chase this precocious crop. For many their season is now practically over. Being out on the moors early dawn is one beekeeping's great experiences. I can't imagine keeping bees without doing it.
 #11558  by Patrick
 23 Jul 2021, 20:13
Our nearest SW areas are Exmoor and Dartmoor but always used to be dark muttering about bees coming back with EFB, which took the edge off. Have had an open invite to take bees to a valley full of heather on Dartmoor and was finally going to give it a go as everything else so poor, but currently isolating with family Covid so that’s stuffed that.

Spent a couple of hours with local bees this evening - loads of bramble pollen coming in. Shook out a drone laying half of a split (first QC never resulted in a mated queen and refused to be requeened). Should have shaken out a couple of weeks ago tbh. Another colony superseding - huge single cell. Was kept as a nuc in an area with poor forage and quite a bit of sac brood. Fed them and moved closer to home and the bees have obviously decided Queenie not up to it. Saw queen wandering about but seems to have gone off lay, so left them to it.

Most seem to be laying strongly - which is good, but would have been handy six weeks ago. Never really believed in spring feeding but maybe that’s next years experiment. Overwintering on single brood and two supers was last year’s wheeze and no great advantage seen. Had some nice nucs to overwinter but now getting so strong will probably stick them in hives and be done with it.
 #11559  by MickBBKA
 23 Jul 2021, 20:48
I had a drive over to the moors today to check it out. Up at Commondale Ling is still a good week away at least from flowering and Bell heather is patchy, probably not enough to sustain them yet until the Ling flowers. My apiary at Westerdale looks more promising, the area is more sheltered and South facing so will take 5 or 6 colonies up there later in the week, lots of Bell out and could have possibly tried a colony or 2 for a crop if I had thought about it earlier.

If I get chance tomorrow I hope to look in on my apiary near the Tees as the road leading to it is lined purely with huge Lime trees for about a mile and looked stunning last week. It sounded like every insect for miles was there, I hope some bees were amongst them. :D
 #11562  by JoJo36
 24 Jul 2021, 06:51
I have a question re Apivar strips and honey supers please:
.
.
I have moved this to a new thread titled APIVAR STRIPS under "Pests and Diseases" Hope this is OK JoJo36.
Adam.
 #11563  by JoJo36
 24 Jul 2021, 07:11
btw Nigel
Thanks for detailed reply re "heather honey" sounds totally variable from year to year with regards crop which I suppose mirrors beekeeping as a whole, very dependant on weather!! :)
 #11590  by MickBBKA
 27 Jul 2021, 02:30
Making brood boxes and frames to put on my 2021 splits. Most nucs in full brood boxes now with at least 8 frames of brood. So I like to put a new brood box on top of foundation and stick a Ashforth feeder on with a gallon of syrup to draw frames ready for next season. Queens the following year lay them up in super quick time and can fill a brood box in 10 or 12 days, its well worth the effort and sugar now.
  • 1
  • 180
  • 181
  • 182
  • 183
  • 184
  • 301