I noticed on our association website www.barkstonashbees.com that the local community shop was looking for a supply of honey. Accordingly I made contact and agreed to deliver 15 1lb jars while I was going to the association apiary.
At the apiary attendance was a bit low perhaps influenced by holidays.
It's not been a very good year for the colonies there. Two of the hives were failing with no worker brood cells but lots of random pattern capped drone comb. No queens could be found. The apiary manager took the boxes away and shook them out into the woods. Empty boxes were placed on the original sites to collect returning bees and he undertook to return later to carry out a newspaper unite of those bees with two other association colonies.
On a happier note the other hives (mostly containing outside sourced bees) were running nicely. We discussed possible factors as to why the association sourced colonies appeared to be suffering the failures. Suggestions including poor drone availability, degeneration of the area genetic pool were voiced. I'm inclined to think the gene pool is a significant candidate since outside sourced bees seem to be ok. We'll have to survey other local members to ascertain the situation with nearby colonies.
At the apiary attendance was a bit low perhaps influenced by holidays.
It's not been a very good year for the colonies there. Two of the hives were failing with no worker brood cells but lots of random pattern capped drone comb. No queens could be found. The apiary manager took the boxes away and shook them out into the woods. Empty boxes were placed on the original sites to collect returning bees and he undertook to return later to carry out a newspaper unite of those bees with two other association colonies.
On a happier note the other hives (mostly containing outside sourced bees) were running nicely. We discussed possible factors as to why the association sourced colonies appeared to be suffering the failures. Suggestions including poor drone availability, degeneration of the area genetic pool were voiced. I'm inclined to think the gene pool is a significant candidate since outside sourced bees seem to be ok. We'll have to survey other local members to ascertain the situation with nearby colonies.
