Well it seems spring is on hold - have had 4 days of solid beekeeping since Friday and while on the whole the bees are looking strong and have (annoyingly) in some cases built brace comb in the ekes I’d used for fondant, most are pushing on to a full brood box already, some on more. A few colonies had to be sorted through to pop the queens back down into brood boxes that had started laying in the odd super that had remained from the autumn.
The other part to the weekend was preparing and moving about 40 colonies to the OSR which is just starting to flower.
I finished that today moving a few old Langstroths I had that now have converter boards on to take national supers.
And another wild colony that I missed that was in an old poly Nuc now has a hole in the roof and a brood chamber above it to encourage the bees up and hopefully out of the small space they currently have.
Ok. So that bit is messing a bit with bees and yes took more time to sort than was necessary but sometimes I like to tinker rather than be full on bee farming.
What was a surprise was how many colonies are already filling their first super with capped honey in some. I’m not sure what it’s from - I have a spare sampling jar somewhere I think I might send it off for sampling to find out.
So for the rest of my week off - some hive stand making, supers on the other 8 apiaries I need to get around and some overdue bottling.
A busman’s holiday ? A Beeman’s more like !
The other part to the weekend was preparing and moving about 40 colonies to the OSR which is just starting to flower.
I finished that today moving a few old Langstroths I had that now have converter boards on to take national supers.
And another wild colony that I missed that was in an old poly Nuc now has a hole in the roof and a brood chamber above it to encourage the bees up and hopefully out of the small space they currently have.
Ok. So that bit is messing a bit with bees and yes took more time to sort than was necessary but sometimes I like to tinker rather than be full on bee farming.
What was a surprise was how many colonies are already filling their first super with capped honey in some. I’m not sure what it’s from - I have a spare sampling jar somewhere I think I might send it off for sampling to find out.
So for the rest of my week off - some hive stand making, supers on the other 8 apiaries I need to get around and some overdue bottling.
A busman’s holiday ? A Beeman’s more like !
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