Bee Botox

Well yesterday was such a nice day weather wise that decided should really tidy garden and cut grass, might not get another chance when grass was reasonably dry.

Big mistake, bees still don't like me cutting the grass, they got an early strike in when I was only using shears, on forehead, I was going to post a photo, but when a colleague at work said I looked like one of the aliens from Star Trek I thought better of the photo! :-)

Ended up cutting the grass in my bee suit, this can't carry on! But hey by the next time I cut the grass all these bees except the Queen will be dead and the next generation might be in a better mood?

But on the plus side no wrinkles again on my forehead, time to google this bee sting therapy that Victoria Beckenham has done, maybe I can offer lunchtime sessions at work, a whole new sideline to beekeeping :-)

A very old bee

Spotted on the wall of St Peter's church at the Vatican, I wonder why somebody chose to make this all those years ago?

Back in Whyteleafe the bees were tucking themselves in for the winter and then we get a nice warm day and the promise of 18 deg tomorrow.

Tomorrow will drop the second Apiguard into the hive and after talking with fellow bee keepers will drop the crown board below the super and let them spend the winter in just the brood box which is how it should always be. Easy to get this beekeeping thing a bit confused at times, will probably change my mind again by morning! :-)

October and bees still flying!!!

Well October is here and the bees are still flying, the season is all confused, not to mention me! In two or three minds what do I do?

Opened the hive for the last proper check until the spring, all seems well, found the queen, some brood and larvae but not much and loads of honey in the brood box, in fact it is full of honey. On top of that I have a super with six frames of uncapped honey, pretty sure I don't need to feed the bees, they have so much honey already stored up.

No sign of any drones, so the lazy bar stewards have been kicked out and are now probably wasp food!

This beekeeping lark is sometimes about gut feelings, so rightly or wrongly I have left the super on, removed the queen excluder so queenie can move between brood and super through the winter, have added a few more super frames but left some space and added apiguard to start varroa mite treatment.

Sitting here my only concern is if I have a super on in January when I need to apply oxalic acid, will it work? Oh well I suppose time will tell :-)

I'm sure this might not make much sense to some of you that read my blog, but feel free to ask questions :-) Bees are a very confusing subject!

Overcrowded?

With all this great weather recently the bees don't really seem to know if they are coming or going, having taken their honey and reducing the hive size down to just a brood box for the winter I was faced with a lot of bees outside the hive most days this week, so time to check and see if I can work out why, also time to think about feeding them so the colony won't starve over the winter.

I prepared the feed and got everything ready and then opened the hive, only to find that every brood frame was full of honey, so much so that there was very little brood and no space for any eggs to be laid, the poor old Queen must have been crossing her legs! My concern then was without any eggs being laid would there bee enough bees to survive the long haul through winter, the older bees having been exhausted with all the very late foraging?

So on the spur of the moment a quick change of plan, obviously no need to feed them, but I wanted more space in the brood box for the queen, so one goes a super again and five drawn frames that I had just weeks before harvested the honey from, I'm hoping the bees will fill these and then make space for egg laying?

But who really knows what goes through a colony's mind, will have to wait and see. Will also have to decide just when to put the apiguard in to treat the varroa, once in the hive definitely no more honey will be fit to be harvested.

Decisions decisions!!