Originally I thought It would improve the gene pool and possibly add to varroa resistance but concern has been expressed that it could lead to f2 aggression and after further research I am none the clearer.
It seems possible that depending on the timing Apiguard alone may not have been enough this year. Not sure if it was the temperature at the end of August but the Apiguard I applied didn't appear to be fully dispersed. We applied OA treatment in December resulting in a significant mite drop.
I regularly rewax my jackets, takes one tin of wax and about 1/2 an hour. Never bothered cleaning my very dirty farm barbour and it comes up as good as new (apart from all the rips and holes which are important for authenticity obvs.)
Trying to get the balance right. Last year i thought I underfed them then this year they seemed to have no stores to speak of in early September so may have over done it since then. There was a lot of propolis around which i put down to winter preperations.
Both hives are on brood and a half plus a super for the winter. The super and the half were pretty full of stores but the brood box, on the bottom, had plenty of space. Is there an argument for moving the half down to the bottom of the stack?
In my second year of beekeeping and yesterday went through two hives, lots of stores and bees but hardly any brood to speak of Saw one of the two Queens but didnt look thoroughly for the other. Just wondered if this is uncommon in October. Have been feeding syrup at intervals throughout Sep and...
You can’t rely on the land to provide without putting anything back. We need diverse cropping combined with ruminants to regenerate the soil with well managed muck and no synthetics! Our fields are now bursting with flowers planted for winter grazing it’s really quite beautiful and hopefully...