Dec 25 & Jan 26 - Apiary report
Happy New Year to all!
Our Christmas dinner at The White Horse Bilsington was thoroughly enjoyed and thanks to everyone involved in making it such a great evening.
In the apiary our colonies are on and off clustering due to the unseasonal weather from being warm and then cold. Stores are being gobbled up at an alarming rate.
All of our colonies had a full 15kg container of syrup. They now are having pollen patties. We are trying the patties from Simon the Beekeeper as its a new recipie. The bees seem to like them. Very easy to place on the crown board and quite soft in texture.
I'm also putting a large hessian bag of sugar, under cover but accessible for the bees. The damp weather will turn the sugar into a form of syrup. Joanne has accidentally discovered this method from one of the partly emptied sacks donated to us.
We have plenty of sugar available. Full members just a donation. Friend members its the normal price of 50p per kilo. Contact Robert or Joanne for collection.
I've checked all the hives and all are intact after the storm. We have clear and no blocked entrances giving good ventilation, no woodpecker damage, mouse guards are in place and grass and vegetation is away from the bases to prevent damp floors.
I have noticed quite a considerable amount of dead bees on the landing boards. This is due to the bees being cold and not able to get into the hive to warm up once they have popped outside for toilet flights.
If anyone has Woodpecker damage, wrap your hives in chicken wire. The club has got some for emergency issues.
Apiary hedging has been pruned to fence and post height. We are planting a new row of Beech trees for hedging in-front of the nuc mating area. We need some more beech cuttings to finish the row of hedging. If anyone has a Beech hedge and is willing for me to take cuttings for propagation please contact me.
We are looking at numbering all hives along with clipping all of our queens wings for exams. This is part of the syllabus for BBKA GH26 husbandry exams.
I noticed the catkins from the hazel trees are just about ready to open giving the bees an early source of pollen. A very low pollen but at least it's food. Along with the catkins I found some Ivy which is about to flower.
Hope everyone has done their winter varroa treatment. This is the most important treatment of the year.
Most of us are thinking of the coming season. I have been making frames and hive parts. Looking forward to seeing if the our new Abelo poly hive is going to be more successful than our current orange poly hive. We also purchased 2 new wooden mating nucs and they look good. They are split into 4 sections like my yellow hive. I can't wait to get them up and running. We need to try and produce queens in early April in order they are ready for May. Quite a few members have already ordered queens and we have a reserve list of people wanting to purchase nucs.
We have still got to put the shed roof back on. I'm waiting for a little warmer.
Asian/YL Hornet Trappit will be available again this year from Steve and Robert. Hornets aren't going away!
Trapping along with identifying them is an integral and important function of beekeeping these days and will be introduced to exam syllabus shortly.
I have ordered a Hornet device to attach to the new poly hive, picture below . A similar device was floating around about 5 years ago from a maker in France. This device I'm trying this year has been tested in Switzerland.
The BBKA general husbandry exam talk was excellent last week. It was from a current NBU inspector. I picked up some useful information. The most important piece of information was again hygiene and how disease is spread. Gloves are a major issue apart from disposable ones. The other is smoker bellows (covering them with a hair shower cap.) and the hive tool.
As we are fully covered by Bee disease insurance for AFB and EFB replacement of hives, I personally would have all hives and associated equipment burnt. The spores from EFB are present for 3 years. On any disease front we have to be considerate of neighbours bees as long as ours.
BBKA Basic Assessment
We have 7 members studying for the Basic exam this year. Very simple practical exam for members who have beekeeping for at least 12 months. The exam is taken at our apiary at the end of this summer Anybody else interested please contact Joanne asap.
Introduction to Beekeeping Courses
I believe we are currently running 4 courses, with 2 being totally exclusive for private groups. The first starts mid April. Anyone interested please contact Joanne.
Along with these courses our other activates for the coming season are: The NBU Day, Queen rearing, Skep making, the German exchange and summer BBQ.
We are looking for a tutor to run our skep making day as the lady we had booked is now unavailable. Dates for the calander will be updated asap.
We are also looking for more volunteers to help with our Saturday monthly market. If you have a couple of hours spare on the first Saturday of the month, please contact Katy. Hopefully from April time onwards we will have the observation hive on the stall for attracting customers.
Our current membership stands at 110 Active members which is fantastic and we would like to encourage as many of you to get involved please.
We have come along way and there is a lot in the pipeline for growth for our apiary.
We also have many communty events planned from the local hospice to gardening groups and schools. If any members would like to help out with these please let us know.
We also need a person for secretarial duties, assistance of any kind would be greatly appreciated.
