The
Story The Breeze Hill Bees in 2017
The story really starts going into the winter of
2016/17.
we had two colonies of bees Matilda and Bodica on the left, we had also an empty
Top bar hive that we had brought in the end of season sales and it we
want it to weather in over the winter.
The Bodica colony was on the small size being just on
the minimum of six frames of bees to survive the winter.
About now in Feb 2017 looking at my diary we had a very
cold snap and although we didn't know it until we were able to carry
out our first inspection about a month later, that cold snap was to
much for the small Bodica colony and being unable to keep themselves
warm.
.So It
was not until the end of April and the start of the swarming season
that we where able to both replenish the empty hive with a swarm
we collected from AJ Plants in irchester where one of their two
colonies colonies had swarmed and also we had our first residents of
the top bar hive from performing an artificial swarm one of our own
hives that was on the point of swarming as well.
So we have
two new queens! “2017 Bodica” and the rather salacious named
Top Bar Mary!
Just a
couple of weeks later on May the 7th and
without any of the normal warning signs the Matilda colony swarmed, I
was there and it is a spectacular sight. With just a few minutes they
had settled around the queen on a small bush . So I was able to rush home get my
swarm collection kit, collect the bees and put them in a Nuc ( a
small hive for use for short periods). This meant no disturbance
for at least three weeks to allow the New Queen Matilda to get out
and get herself mated.
A day
later we had two call outs for the NBKA so it looked like the
swarming period was well under way! We were able to find home for
both of these with new keepers looking for their first colonies.
Just
another two days and I thought that “Top Bar Mary” hive looks
very quite donning my suit to have a look and they had all flown,
obviously not impressed with the “Natural “ home I had provided !
Never the
less this was not a problem as I had you will recall a swarm from
the Matilda hive and they went into the top bar, Thus old Queen
Matilda in the Nuc with her swarm became the new Top Bar Mary! In
the Top Bar hive. All very confusing.
On the
19th of May I had a quick peek into the
new Matilda's hive and a routine look in the new Bodica to find that
both were in the process of a producing a small number new queen
cells, meaning that the previous queens had for whatever reason
failed or were failing and a superseedure was in process. I WAS
BEGINING TO THINK I WILL BE GLAD WHEN MAY IS FINISHED!
We had
Three more call out before the end of the month a also quite a few
more that turned out to be bumble bees in bird boxes ect.
During
all this time we had been dusting the bees each time the hive was
opened with icing sugar as the bees then clean each other and
dislodge and Varroa mites that might be on them.
The
colonies then seemed to settle down and in early July I was able
to take four frames of honey from Bodica and two from the TOP BAR
hive. with more coming along from all three colonies in time to
spin some frames for honey for our open day on 12th of the
August. In total we collected about12 Lb , selling about half to
offset our costs .
Shortly
after that it was time I sent honey samples down the the Botanical
gardens of Wales, where a young lady is doing her PHD and I hope
that in the not too distant future we will get the results from where
the bees are feeding and I hope it will have been on our beans,
strawberries and fruit bushes.
We also
to started feeding
the bees with either sugar water, then later fondant and
Commercial feed to ensure they had sufficient stores for the coming
winter.
In mid
September the weather was cooling thus the queens egg laying was
slowing considerably and thus a lot of the cells ( were the Varroa
hide) are open I put on MAC chemical strips on both Matilda and
Bodica along with Varroa boards underneath so I could count the
drop of dead Varroa and thus make an assessment as the level of
infestation. Which had in fact been quite high.
In
December the day and nigh temperatures had dropped considerably
so it was time to put on insulation, Woodpecker guards on the the two
National hives and mouse guards on the entrance ways.
Last
but not least on January the 9th this year
all the colonies both on Breeze Hill and at our Corner field
Apiary in Irchester had their Christmas present of 1 KG of Commercial
feed called Api Candy to ensure that food supplies does not become an
issue before the first plants start to appear for the worker bees to
start foraging.
But as
with last year we will not know the real story until we can do
our first inspection this year.
