Tales from the Cornerfield Apiary , Autumn

Tales from the Corner Field Apiary

Autumn

The season as you will recall has not been a very good one and we finished up with just 22Lb of Honey , about half our normal amount.

Now the misty mornings and condensation on the windows tell me autumn has really arrived. In the Apiary you also will remember in my last blog that I was preparing for the equinox anyway and I am pleased to say that with the exception of Queen Matilda's colony the three other colonies ( Anne, Victoria and Elizabeth) are all in fine fettle with between eight to nine frames of packed bees. Matilda is a worry because she has only about six, the minimum that that a colony needs to survive to coming winter as winter deaths will further deplete the colony , possible to a point where it would no longer be viable come the spring.

I have just finished treating them for the Varroa Destructor a common and now an endemic parasite in all UK mainland colonies with a chemical called Appiguard.

The female Varroa does here dastardly deed by laying her eggs in a cell when an egg has pupated into a grub and just before its big sisters seal it with wax for the final stages of pupation into a juvenile bee. Thus the Varroa feed on the grub and the bee is born with it attached, feeding on its “blood” and very often infecting the bee with viruses that can cause deformations such as one wing or the inability to feed its self. Clearly if the Varroa is not kept in check. In time the colony would become unviable and collapse.

The other rather sad sign the last time I visited was the Drone bees ( males) being denied entry and some being physically thrown out of the hive. The male bee has a country gentle mans life, he only purpose in life is to finds a virgin queen and mates with her. If he does then he dies a happy chappy!. If he does not then his summer is spend being welcome in any hive, and not having to any duties that the females have to do. But come the Autumn he is just another mouth to feed and he is unceremoniously ejected, and starves and dies!

On that happy note I will write again soon . Freddie

Summer The Apiary

High Summer!

Hello again from the Cornerfield Apiary, I'm told its now summer!! well it might be but the weather from when I last put some tales on the Cornerfield Blog has been terrible for both our bees and our allotments on Breeze Hill where now have another hive (Matilda).

On the allotment its been a strange season with some plants doing well with the sunshine then showers, and other not so. This seems to be general across the other plot holders too.

But for the bees it been a very tough season because as you know they go out collecting nectar ( and pollen for the grubs ) that they turn into honey , they keep it up right from the start of the season in May time right through to the end about now in August. By then they normally  have collected vastly more that they need for their own purposes and for the forth coming winter, the rest of course is for us their Keepers!

But this years topsy turvy weather with a few days of sunshine and then a few days of rain as meant that the girls have had to eat what they collected and thus now at the end of the season we will probably only have about one “super” worth of honey , about half what we normally get . The situation became so critical that the BBKA  sent out an email to watch for starvation! 

It will soon to time to start feeding them as the source of nectar dry s up and also treat then for Varroa mite . I have purchased four sachets of commercially produced bee food to give the girls at the end of the month for their stores And also the same amount of a chemical called Appiguard . This is used after the queens have had a chance to lay some more eggs to make sure we have a good stock of “winter bees” (to start the new season next year) when she does slow down it means the Varroa has no where to hide as many of the cells are empty, it there for the Appiguard treatment can do its work .

So as far as the bees are concerned after the ups and downs of last years winter losses , swarm collections ect. Some of those made it, some did not, and some have been amalgamated so we now have three colonies in the Cornerfield Apiary ( Victoria, Anne and Elizabeth) and Queen Matilda's colony on the Breeze Hill allotment site.

One of those “Victoria “ not the original queen of course, has proved to be bad tempered and a result so is her colony and they make sure you are not made welcome when you open them up!

Recently I had forgotten my bee gloves, so donned some gardening ones I had in the car. On opening the hive up I had seven stings through my flimsy gloves in the about the same time! I had to with draw rapidly! Smoke my hands so no more were attracted to the sting sites , then return and hurriedly reassemble to hive! Since then I have not opened up again! But they have produced the most honey giving us the same as the other three all together.

I will write again soon Freddie

Spring is Sprung!

Spring is Here!

Hello again, I am sorry that I have not blogged for some time, but a spell in hospital put me all out of sorts!. Georgina has been doing stirling work keeping an eye on the girls until I got back on my feet again. ( not to mention our allotment and visiting me, what a woman!).

You will remember that we had lost two swarms through the winter, but disaster struck when I found that one of the surviving two ( Victoria) had no queen , so I had no choice but to amalgamate them with the thriving “Anne” .

You do this by first placing news paper between the two with holes punched through. That way the two swarms can become acquainted , they  chew the holes much bigger smell and touch , become friends and then as one.

But we are our local swarm collectors, both registered with the council and our local Bee Association.

So it was that we had our first call out from the council that a lady had a swarm in her back alley ( if you will excuse the expression). It could not be found! More phone calls and a return trip found that it was a swarm, but not one to be collected. they had made their home through the corner of a flat roofed building and was in the roof space. As I am not getting into building work this one was a false start!.

On the following Sunday going over to the Cornerfield to check on “Anne” I met our nursery hosts who said they had been trying to contact us since Friday. They had a swarm high in the outer branches of a tree, also impossible to reach. As we looked on the swarms scouts must have come back with a find and the swarm took off, flying so low over our heads that we had to duck!. It first circled then then disappeared down their chimney! They then started making its home in the living room wood burner!!

Sadly there was little else to do, and after several attempts to encourage the girls to go and live some where else failed, but destroy them.

That same afternoon we had a call for a swarm in a front gardens small tree, this we collected and is safely ensconced in a hive with the Ancient Queens name of “Bodica”      ( lets hope they are not aggressive as she was!).

On the Monday we collected one swarm more and a “cast” this is a second much smaller departure following a virgin queen about ten bays after a main swarm has left the parent hive. They are now in a “nuc” a sort of small hive and hopefully the new virgin queen will get mated and become the “White Queen” ( white being this years colour to mark the queens or hive so you when she was born).

On arriving at the first swarm however the on Monday I had forgotten my suit! A hectic drive home to return with the said suit, but wrong short gardening gloves.

The result was a successful swarm collected and two stings and a bemused house holder! I recall from my Army days that “time spent in preparation is seldom wasted” is one I really must remember!

So the upshot of this May madness is that from one swarm we now have three and a fourth potential, if our new Virgin goes out has a good time, comes back with a huge smile on her face and gets laying!

Well thats it for now , I hope you are all well, I will write again soon.

Freddie

Spring Tales from the Cornerfield Apiary

Its late March and at last the first of the years spring flowers are poking their heads out, they are lovely to see ,the lovely vibrant colours and way they sway back and forth in the fresh March winds.

But first we have to take stock, Unfortunately this year we have lost two of our four hives. Queen Elinor,s swarm has succumbed to what some keepers call “isolation starvation”.

That is to say although we put fondant on all the hives as an insurance against starvation so the bees can cope with the the funny period between using the last of their winter stores and the new plant growth.

Elinor,s the swarm appeared to have gathered at the other end of their hive away from the food, and probably due to the cold of late winter had not ventured away from the warmth of the swarm and thus never found the food we had supplied.

Meanwhile we had seen some evidence of upset tummies on the landing board so we thought ( as we could not open up to see) that maybe the fact that they was not taking the fondant was because they had either dysentery or another disease called Nosema. In the event it was  neither and very upsetting to see so  many bees with their little bottoms in the air as they scraped the last of their honey from the combs.

Our other loss was with Queen Elizabeth's swarm we think she had died at some point though the winter so the swarm was both very small and queen less. So to give them some chance we used a method call “Shook swarm” i.e. tipping them out away from the other hives in the hope that most will find a new home in one of the two active swarms ( Queen Anne and Victoria). All in all a sorry tales I am sure you will agree!

But we must look forward and we are confident that both our surviving swarms will be thinking of swarming come May time and I will need to keep a sharp eye out on my weekly visits as the temperature get above 14 deg to ensure I don't miss the signs. Once spotted , and using a timely intervention called an “artificial Swarm”. I will be able to populate the cleaned out and prepared empty hives and bring back up to four again!

We do have plans to put one of the new swarms down our allotment, much nearer home and more convenient for us and a big boost for the Breeze Hill food production!. To this end we have started making some preparations for one of the hives to be place down their and our “Nuc” a sort of mini hive readied to place the arifically swarmed bees in, too transport them to their new home. A safe seven miles from their old one so they wont go back to where they came from, Something that can happen if the move is under two miles.

We have also registered with our local society so we should be notified if there is a swarm reported in the Wellingborough area.

Well that about it for now, I hope you have a great spring and don't forget to plant some bee friendly plants, with out these tiny busy ladies we would be in an awful lot of bother!

I will write again soon Freddie