Snow has finally gone for now!

Snow has finally gone and temperatures were 8-9 degs so thought would look to see how many had died in this spell, took off the porch and had a quick look in entrance, all blocked up with dead bees, hooked them out, maybe 150 plus bees! But did see a few bees moving about, then all of a sudden bees flying everywhere, temperature had hit 10 degs and they needed a bathroom break, can bees cross their legs for that long? :-)

Thought also that would be a good time to feed them too, but didn't have any fondant solid food, so a quick call to Sue and an internet search came up with a recipe, boiling up sugar and water, letting it cool and then pouring into a suitable container, hopefully a Marks and Spencer curry container will do the trick?

Have to fed them solid food this time of year as syrup requires the bees to expend too much energy converting to honey stores, they need to evaporate the water.

Bees and this snow!

More snow again, the last lot of snow was scary for a first time beekeeper, I found 150 plus dead bees jammed in the entrance of the hive and outside, I thought that was it, colony all dead, but common sense eventually kicks in and you begin to think what is 150 bees out of an over wintering colony of 8000 or so bees! But still pretty scary! I was told that maybe when the cold hit the hive some of the bees were away from the ball of the colony getting honey stores and might have been chilled and died?

Cold wouldn't really kill a colony off, it's damp that does, so with this last lot of snow I decided I would make them a little porch to help keep the worst of the snow away and in turn the damp. The entrance mouse guard is still bunged up with bees but I guess as soon as the weather warms a bit the bees will soon clear them out? Can you tell I'm still not that confident!

Bee Igloo

Well the snow arrived, wow has it arrived, this is day three, I've had to clear the entrance to the hive each morning, well I say I have had to, but to be honest not sure if I should! The first morning I tunnelled in, a bee flew out straight past me, I wonder did she ever find her way back? Each day there has been bees coming just outside the entrance, not flying, think they are carrying out the dead bees and rubbish. I'm hoping that the latest entrance will remain clear, but must watch closely because what kills bees is being damp and wet in hive, I have left snow on to insulate like an igloo, but as soon as thaw starts will need to clear away quick to avoid melt water in hive.

This morning it wasn't too bad first thing so I thought I had better pop out and see if the bees had been feeding, soon saw they hadn't so decided would remove feeder and close hive up for the winter, what did I do wrong? I was in a rush and decided that I didn't need my bee suit! Big mistake, a few bees started to fly and land on me, I quickly realised that retreat was best policy and dashed indoors and put on my suit, little did I realise that two bees had joined me inside my suit! They made there presence soon felt and no that isn't my elbow in the picture, it was a pretty impressive bee sting, think the whole venom sack was pumped into my arm! :-)

The other picture is the mouse guard that I put in place as well, mice like to live in the bottom of hives in the winter, the hives are dry and warm.

Last feed of the year? Perhaps.

It was a bit warmer at the end of last week and the bees were busy, so thought I would tempt them with some more sugar solution, I fed them 2 pints on Wednesday and by Friday morning they had polished it off, as I planned to be away over the weekend I thought I should continue feeding so gave then 4 pints, as yet it's too dark and wet to check, but hopefully I will be able to quickly look in the hive under floodlight before end of week to see if they are still feeding.
That will make 25kgs of sugar they have consumed since I started the winter feed!
Ok and this time I stuck the cover strip down in the feeder with some Duct Tape so that I didn't drown awhole lot more of my bees!
In about a month it with be time to think about treating with oxalic acid for varroa and also how on earth I am going to tidy up the mess in the brood box that I have allowed to happen by using different size frames! Well they do say you learn more by your mistakes, hopefully no harm will have been done:-)

Continue Feeding or Treat for Varroa again?

I've been worried for the last week or so that the count of Varroa mites falling onto the inspection tray as been far too high, so taking advice I bought some more Apiguard with the intention of starting treatment this weekend.

But on Saturday the weather was so nice and the forecast good for Sunday that I decided to feed one more time and then treat on Sunday. However there were 5 bees with deformed wings on the ground in front of the hive trying to fly, a sign that Varroa levels maybe too high.

Too high levels of Varroa can lead to the colony not surviving the winter!

I opened the hive on Sunday with the intention of doing a full inspection and hopefully get on last look at the Queen before leaving them be until March. Horror, the bees had managed to break into the feeder and floating in the sugar solution must have been over 100 bees in various stages of drowning! I took the feeder tray and eke off and set to with the inspection, would get back to the drowning bees at the end.

It was very obvious the bees had been busy with all that sugar solution they had been eating, lots of stores and new honey comb, as I came to the frames in the centre that I had not increased in size to brood and a half I found I couldn't remove the frames, the bees had build so much comb and bonded it to the sides of the hive that the frames were stuck fast, I didn't realise this until I forced the first frame out only to see a big lump of comb fall to the floor of the hive and another section tear apart with brood becoming exposed! Time to stop the inspection before I did any more damage, I hadn't seen the Queen so will now have to sweat it out until the New Year and hope I didn't harm her in my clumsy inspection!

So frames all put back, Apiguard tray installed and now time to see how many bees I could salvage from the sugar solution. I hope I saved about 20 of them but will never know for sure, I fished those still moving out and put them on the hive landing board in the hope that the other worker bees would clean the solution off them.

At the end I was covered in sticky solution and very popular with the bees and wasps, I beat a hasty retreat to the house with sticky buckets etc to clean up.

Fingers crossed all will be ok, don't like the idea of not feeding them, so I've made some sugar fondant, which is currently drying on a radiator, I'm told you shouldn't feed and treat at same time but will give it a try.

If they survive the winter I will have some fun in March trying to sort out the mess I have allowed the bees to make of the hive! But I have the winter to work out the best plan of attack, at the moment I am thinking that perhaps I should revert to ordinary sized brood frames, but I'm sure i will change my mind many times! :-)

Greedy Bees

Having topped up the feeder on Saturday with 2 pints of sugar solution I wasn't expecting to see much change when I checked tonight, wow all gone! Perhaps it was because I had lowered the feeding tray and it was easier for the bees to get to the food?

This time I filled feeder with 4 pints of sugar solution, the clever money is on the bees eating this by Thursday?

When I bought 30kg of sugar I thought it might end up lasting a couple of seasons, I'm not so sure now, that's 10kg gone into the hive so far!

Skep Making

First up thanks to Mike and Sue of beesnbeans for arranging this course.

OK, I'm knackered, I can't believe that making a skep can be so hard, I can't say that I must be getting old because Martin who ran the course had a few years on me! :-), he was very good, very calm and very knowledgeable.

It's amazing what you can do with the top of a plastic bottle and a piece of copper pipe!

Above is after about 3 hrs!!! OK don't give up the day job. Below is after 8.5hrs, definitely don't give up the day job, but quite relaxing and addictive.

Below is what you can do, will mine end up as a fruit bowl, get lost in the back of a cupboard or get finished?

Feeding Time

I'd put the first 3 pints of sugar and water feed, (1 pint to 1 kg), into the hive last weekend, but having checked a few evenings in the week the bees weren't consuming it anywhere near as quickly as I had been told they would, perhaps it was because I'd put the feeding tray in a super and it was a bit too high for the bees to access, or maybe the colony isn't up to full strength this season as it was a July nuc? I decided what I really needed was an eke, a shallow box the same depth as the feeder.

This morning I popped to the local timer merchant, wanted Cedar but had to settle for pine, I can always treat the wood later once the feeding is done, above is the temporay eke and 2 pints of feed.

Below is the hive before swapping the top super for the eke. Bees were pretty busy and still bringing in plenty of nectar and bright orange and yellow pollen, wonder where they are getting that from?

Below the new eke is in place and the feeder topped up, if you look closely you can see that it's not just the bees who like the food, it's full of drowned ants!

How do the bees get to the food? Under the centre rib is a raised section with a slot in the top, the bees come through the hole and then creep down the sides of the raised section to drink in the feed.

Why do we need to feed them? Well a strong colony needs between 35-40lbs of honey to survive the winter and having stolen their honey, they need to be force fed to replenish their stores. OK I didn't get any honey this year but just want to make sure they have enough to help them survive.

The hive all back together with the eke is place, my one mistake was to do this at about 11am when the bees were pretty active, as a result spent a lot of time trying to keep the bees out of
the feeder and sugar water! As it was it rained all afternoon so maybe I timed it about right?

Tommorrow I'm on a course making a skep.

Just what do bees do in Winter?

Over the past few weeks several people have asked me do bees hibernate, what do they do over the winter?

Well as all good beekeepers know, bees don't hibernate.

So what do they do?

First up It's important to remember that bees are amazing animals.

As the temperature drops (below 10 deg C), the days get shorter and nectar becomes scarce the bees decide it's time to kick the drones out, reduce numbers and stay indoors.

Bees don't hibernate, they cluster in a ball in the middle of the hive and keep each other warm, eating the honey supplies they have stored up to help them keep the temperature in the hive at about 36 deg C, no matter what the temperature falls to outside.

They will stay like this all winter unless there are some warm spells above 10 deg C when they will pop out to visit the toilet, have you ever wondered what the pale brown spots are on the washing on the line? Now you know:-)