2020 - is the consensus that its a bad year for beeks ?

[GuyNir]

Interesting to see that my Welsh bees are the only ones that filled a few supers with the more further afield queens and a couple of buckfast not even filling 1 super...

interesting you say that. Exactly the same here. I have only one Buckfast colony, lovely and prolific Q, the most gentle colony I have, joy to inspect. Boxes are absolutely full to the brim with bees, never swarmed or showed signs of swarming but... not a drop of honey in the supers all year. Lots of foragers, supers absolutely full of bees, but not a drop, as if they’re not interested in storing nectar/honey.
colonies next to it with 3-4 supers, mostly full

 

[Curly green finger's]

Poor year honey wise down my way but the early warm weather has allowed me to increase to where I wanted to be and bees are healthy so I am happy with that. Queen rearing hasn't been great, few poorly mated that needed replacing and around 20% overall success from grafting to fully mated. Interesting to see that my Welsh bees are the only ones that filled a few supers with the more further afield queens and a couple of buckfast not even filling 1 super... 100% success rate on queen introduction so that's also a positive.

My queen intro has been good to Jeff and pretty much the same for my Welsh bees they started of slow but have out done my Italians on honey production.
Poor summer yield so far.
My Mating queen's has been 100% and I'm very happy with the nucs produced.
Im hoping to try some of Paul's queen's next year and hopefully some of jonathan Gettys.

 

[jeff33]

My queen intro has been good to Jeff and pretty much the same for my Welsh bees they started of slow but have out done my Italians on honey production.
Poor summer yield so far.
My Mating queen's has been 100% and I'm very happy with the nucs produced.
Im hoping to try some of Paul's queen's next year and hopefully some of jonathan Gettys.

It has been frustrating with the queen rearing, very good success with grafting but I somehow end up with hardly any queens after a few poorly mated and a few not emerging. I also lost 2 in the apidea, swarming I think. Lessons learnt for next year.

 

[Swn58]

Very good here. My totally new apiary of ten nucs became fully functioning hives within weeks. This is despite the farm suffering from complete crop failure, due to flooding and small black beetles. The early tree flowering was very good. There was Laurel, May and fantastic Lime this year. My bees went crazy! I have processed hundreds of pounds of honey in the last month and there is even more to come.

 

[Swn58]

It has been frustrating with the queen rearing, very good success with grafting but I somehow end up with hardly any queens after a few poorly mated and a few not emerging. I also lost 2 in the apidea, swarming I think. Lessons learnt for next year.

Yes ....same here on that front. My fault. It was a case of mis-timing, lack of observation and being held up by other factors such as the Covid. Never mind, I will be better prepared next year for certain!

 

[Ash-Rhea]

One buckfast colony overwintered giving about 70lb compared to 120 last year and a rather special 219 the year before (a different queen which only lasted a year).
I put it down to the weather. The colony was about a week later bulding up than last year, no OSR so they focused on cherry, apple and plum then spring beans, which replaced the rape, but the past month has been net consumption despite plenty of bramble about.
Next year will be interesting though as I built up three more colonies and bought a nuc.

 

[Angry_Mob]

Checked the historical weather for my locale today, July 2019 seen 15 days with temps 20°c or above; this year we had a single day in July that we managed to reach 20 degrees. From what I gather from other beeks here it's been a very poor year. For rain last year we had 14 days that it didn't rain in July opposed to 5 this year.

Checked the hives down at the orchards, HB flow so going to leave them to it but minimal capping; despite having more hives than last years I'd be lucky if I managed half of last years yield. However the August forecast is looking more promising so I just hope I can salvage the remainder of the season.

 

[citrus]

sadly lost another hive ... queen failed and was too late to react ... been trying to inspect a bit less to 'let the bees' sort themselves out ...but got the wrong side of that and ended up getting a wax moth infestation instead ....also another nuc got wiped out ... so a real backwards year for me ... guess I have been spoilt for the last 3 years :-(

 

[Blunt Spike]

Been a poor yield year for my bees and reading on the threads it seems the same for a few others (but not exclusively)

guess the last 3 years I've been spoilt year on year so wasnt really mentally prepared it !

just interested in the reasons why this year has been so bad ?

(from sw london - with access to lavender fields at carshalton and banstead common and lots of urban gardens with covid lockdown gardeners doing their best !)

I have mixed thoughts, fantastic yield this year with the biggest spring yield to date and hives almost ready for supers to come off again. Plenty of warm days but then enough rain to keep the plants etc happy. What I have noted is colonies going Q- for no apparent reason.

I have managed to nurture 3 Nucs (gifted by a friend) who were Q- on arrival and refused to create a Q cell when given frames of eggs, they then went on to have drone laying workers - got them back to not laying, then requeening themselves. I know most would say shake out infront of other hives, but it was a challenge to turn them around. Its a shame that we can't Queen bee / brood pheromone available to spray over frames where there are drone laying workers!

 

[Angry_Mob]

What I have noted is colonies going Q- for no ts a shame that we can't Queen bee / brood pheromone available to spray over frames where there are drone laying workers!

Someone posted up recently about a chemical they they imported from a perfume merchant in America that does exactly that. Can't remember who but somebody may be able to point you in the right direction.

 

[Curly green finger's]

sadly lost another hive ... queen failed and was too late to react ... been trying to inspect a bit less to 'let the bees' sort themselves out ...but got the wrong side of that and ended up getting a wax moth infestation instead ....also another nuc got wiped out ... so a real backwards year for me ... guess I have been spoilt for the last 3 years :-(

Sorry to hear that Chris, sometimes we do things as beeks to benefit the bees but it goes a bit pear shaped keep your chin up chap

 

[Blunt Spike]

Someone posted up recently about a chemical they they imported from a perfume merchant in America that does exactly that. Can't remember who but somebody may be able to point you in the right direction.

Thanks for the reply. I dont need it anymore, a frame of fresh laid eggs every 3 days over the space of a couple of weeks stopped the DLWs then a frame of eggs suddenly saw 3 or 4 QCs per hive added.

 

[Clivewoodford]

Of 14 fullyloaded swibine/apidea not a single queen mated... plenty of swallows it seems at that site!
Had far much better joy with the double BS boxes... more bees but at a different mating location.

Not a super year for honey... but must say my native near native bee stocks have doubly out performed the Italians.... who seem to have eaten the little they did bring in!!
Obviously 10,000 years of adaptation to our Cornish climate shines through!

It has been nice and quiet on the roads.... what's the chances of a second lockdown during harvest?

Chons da

Interesting re swallows we have house Martins here and a very low return of queens from mating flights, I’ve always had my suspicions

 

[smitten]

Very low yields, and very low swarming impulse.

But my queen mating has been 100% out of 9 or 10 Queens.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Someone posted up recently about a chemical they they imported from a perfume merchant in America that does exactly that. Can't remember who but somebody may be able to point you in the right direction.

Ocimene.
My bottle arrived yesterday from Thailand. I shall try it next year.

 

[Angry_Mob]

That's the one, found the thread on it: What are my options for a laying worker colony

Where did you purchase yours from?

 

[Swn58]

sadly lost another hive ... queen failed and was too late to react ... been trying to inspect a bit less to 'let the bees' sort themselves out ...but got the wrong side of that and ended up getting a wax moth infestation instead ....also another nuc got wiped out ... so a real backwards year for me ... guess I have been spoilt for the last 3 years :-(

I try to leave the bees alone as much as I can, so they get on with things. Funnily enough, I missed the loss of a queen and will have to merge them now with a Queen-right hive. The colony also got wax-moth as well. It happened due to 'under population' I gather. . I have never had that happen before! The surviving bees are going to be shaken off the ruined frames, into an empty brood box, put on the QR hive, with newspaper between them.

 

[Erichalfbee]

That's the one, found the thread on it: What are my options for a laying worker colony

Where did you purchase yours from?

https://www.perfumersworld.com/

 

[tonyofarr]

How long did the Ocimene take to arrive Dani?

We have had a really difficult year with queens. Loads of vq's have disappeared on mating flights, 3 have turned into drone layers shortly after starting to lay, colonies have refused to accept new queens and 3 hives and 2 nucs have ended up with laying workers despite every effort to get them queenright.

I must admit I am pretty fed up with it all, I checked the home apiary yesterday and most of the honey is unfinished and being eaten, I could have done with this sunny weather a month ago, I just hope I get some vq's mated in the next few days.

 

[Erichalfbee]

How long did the Ocimene take to arrive Dani?

We have had a really difficult year with queens.

Just over two weeks.
Same here. 2 laying workers hives both developed in three weeks!