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