I’m obviously fairly crap at updating. I wanted this to be an informative insight into the life of an almost-natural beekeeper, but somehow I’m not doing it. Perhaps I should write more about what natural beekeeping means to me with illustrations/episodes from my bees. Well we’ll see
The important thing is they are still here and as my Flickr feed at the bottom right should show, new photos have been taken since the last lot and things are going according to plan. The plan is simply to get through the winter! Seriously, there is always something to worry about and at the moment I am worried that the queen is not laying enough. One time I visited them recently and they were quite aggressive, however they have calmed down since then and this might be because I fed them a bit. The theory is that if there is a dearth of food, they will get a bit grumpy (well wouldn’t you?) and the queen will wisely not lay so much if things are scarce. And if the queen isn’t laying the bees get grumpy for that reason, ie a double-whammy. So I am going to feed them some more.
I am fed up with the ziplock bag method, I don’t have a good enough feel for how much the bees are drinking and how much is ending up on the grass underneath the hive (it will drip through the open mesh). So I have ordered a device from Thornes that will turn a 1lb jar into a feeder and I think/hope this will solve my problems, at least for now.
I have also ordered some thymol crystals because I am going to make some thymol treatments as per Gareth’s recipe at Biobees. This will need to be applied in late August/early September if I have evidence of varroa in the hive. So far I have not seen a single varroa mite: while this is not impossible (bee management via TBHs is supposed to help reduce varroa and lots of beekeepers report no varroa at all) I am concerned because (a) I just don’t have that kind of luck and (b) I don’t want to miss them through inexperience. So I am doing another check today (haven’t looked for a while) and will monitor every two weeks or so.
I am having trouble developing a good record system. I write up each inspection and occasionally note things I do between inspections, but it’s not very systematic. I need to be able to track when I last did a varroa check, eg, and what it was, when I last fed them, with what and how much. Will think about that, a spreadsheet seems to be the answer or even, dare I say it, a database…
Meanwhile they are busy busy busy and have finally found our borage in the garden, although they only send a few bees at a time over to it, they are at least coming. Thought they never would. They are turning up their noses at our beautiful calendula though, perhaps the Asters will take their fancy more. There is something in Brackmills (a mile or so north of here) that is attracting them at the moment.
I haven’t seen any varroa mites on the bees or on my monitoring board yet this year, but I’m sure they’re in there. While there is brood present most of them will be busy reproducing inside the brood cells. If you have a monitoring board in I expect you will see mites starting to drop more around autumn-winter as there is less brood in the hive and they are forced to overwinter on the adults. So don’t rely on just looking at the adult bees as a check. You could use an uncapping tool to have a look for mites in the drone brood though.
Fingers crossed for all our bees getting through the winter
Thanks Emily. Yes I’ll keep monitoring. Today I saw one mite running around on the board, and you never have just one