.Hello
again, well its high summer, but already us bee keepers are thinking
of the winter!. The reason being of course that the bees live of the
honey they have stored through the summer ( less what the keeper has
had of course!), and in August nectar bearing flowers and trees are
becoming harder to find.
We
are fortunate in that the our apiary is in a commercial nursery so
flowers are still plentiful and its lovely to see our little ladies
are all over them!.
But
we have to make sure now that we keep an eye on what stores the hives
have left and if they look an bit thin on the ground feed the bees
with either sugar syrup or fondant to provide them with the raw
material to turn in honey.
As
for the four hives only one is causing concern because of its small
size. You will remember in the July tales that a bee keeper friend
had given me a swarm , well the bees are small English black bees and
very quite , but there is still only five frames and it is
recommended that six is really the minimum to give them a chance to
survive e the winter as obviously many die and the swarm contracts
considerably.
The
other three, Queens Anne, Elinor and Victoria are all either on
six or just over frames of bees. and all four have plenty of sealed
broad ( meaning new bees will emerge up to next 21 days). and
there is not much drone broad , This is because the Queens know its
late in the season and there is now no need for any more males!!
Last
but not least we have a new trolley , kindly donated by Georgina,s
sister and this helps the business of carting kit from the car down
to the Apiary a lot Hello again, well its high summer, but
already us bee keepers are thinking of the winter!. The reason being
of course that the bees live of the honey they have stored through
the summer ( less what the keeper has had of course!), and in August
nectar bearing flowers and trees are becoming harder to find.
We
are fortunate in that the our apiary is in a commercial nursery so
flowers are still plentiful and its lovely to see our little ladies
are all over them!.
But
we have to make sure now that we keep an eye on what stores the hives
have left and if they look an bit thin on the ground feed the bees
with either sugar syrup or fondant to provide them with the raw
material to turn in honey.
As
for the four hives only one is causing concern because of its small
size. You will remember in the July tales that a bee keeper friend
had given me a swarm , well the bees are small English black bees and
very quite , but there is still only five frames and it is
recommended that six is really the minimum to give them a chance to
survive e the winter as obviously many die and the swarm contracts
considerably.
The
other three, Queens Anne, Elinor and Victoria are all either on
six or just over frames of bees. and all four have plenty of sealed
brood ( meaning new bees will emerge up to next 21 days). and
there is not much drone brood , This is because the Queens know its
late in the season and there is now no need for any more males!!
Last
but not least we have a new trolley , kindly donated by Georgina,s
sister and this helps the business of carting kit from the car down
to the Apiary a lot easier, we have also decided
to sell half our harvest of honey to cover our running costs at £3.00
per 240 Grms or 1/2 Lb jar.
I
nearly forgot to say I have received my certificate for Bee health
Advisor's course.
I
hope you are all well and I will write again soon
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