Any London honey coming in?

[Mel]

Are any fellow London beekeepers getting any honey in yet?

In a normal year from my 2-4 colonies I would have had a good bit of surplus from early flowers and fruit blossom and now be looking complacently at a Lime flow - but there hasn't been a single fully capped frame yet and the bees are bringing in just enough to cover their own needs, even though the lime is now flowering.

I am in suburbia rather than inner-city - medium sized gardens, lots of flowers for a long season and plenty of fruit trees, but nowhere near a field of rape or anything else. Normally we get a long and generous honey season. Not this year....

Mel

 

[MuswellMetro]

yes a strange year

hives in the alexandra palace area N10, just on first super with one frame of capped honey per super, about 7 miles from Central london)

Hives on roof in St martins lane WC1, starved to death between 14 days inspection in May (they were clipped queens so longer between inspection)

Hives on open horse pasture NW7 about 10miles from central london in london suburbs...on third super, at least one fully capped,some with two and forth foundatin super on

hives near radlett hertfordshire WD6 18 miles from central london...already extracted but zero OSR forgae due to weather ( a friend has even had to spin 14x12 brood frames for egg laying room)

same rain, same temperature, same sun, related queens but different forage

 

[Mel]

I'm very sorry to hear about the bees in St Matin's Lane, but I admire you for having had them there! It must hve been quite a business getting into town, parking, and bringing equipment up and down. How did they do for honey in the past?

Of course, we know there are bees on top of Fortnums, living in the world's most elaborate pagoda-beehives,,,

Mel

 

[Tom Bick]

I have 5 hives at Feltham next to Heathrow and they produced no spring honey and currently one has two supers three have one and the last no supers.

I have another hive at Hounslow and this also produced no spring honey but did have a three quarter full super at that time. It is now on its third super.

I still have a bit more of blackberry to flower and for me the limes are yet to flower.

This year the honey in the supers have ebbed and flowed following the weather this week is typical a few good days with the bees filling their boots and now a few days of bad weather and the bees falling back on reserves.

Like you Mel I am holding out for the Limes but we need the sun and that’s not looking great I can stand at my Feltham apiary and count at least 15 lime trees in eye sight and they will produce something between the rain and if this is for the bees I will be happy with that.

 

[MuswellMetro]

I'm very sorry to hear about the bees in St Matin's Lane, but I admire you for having had them there! It must hve been quite a business getting into town, parking, and bringing equipment up and down. How did they do for honey in the past?

Of course, we know there are bees on top of Fortnums, living in the world's most elaborate pagoda-beehives,,,

Mel

i use my Old age pension tube/bus pass and it takes 15mins on the tube....."have you got a cat in that box mate its purring"...(plastic nuc box on the northern line from Mill Hill East at 8:00 in the evening) Nay...just some animals

the caretaker of the building does most of the inspections and i just advise her and oversee in return for free fresh eggs ( She has chickens also on the roof)....provide bees, extraction, treatments etc. ...last year 40lbs of honey off a langstroth nuc in may

i have got other hives on a university roof and get at weekend and after 4:00 free parking but it is outside the congestion zone so no charges. They are just Nucs into 14x12 boxes, so not yet full colonys

 

[Mel]

Forget green roofs. That is a rooftop meadow!
Mel

 

[Dishmop]

Better than a few camp sites I have been on..

 

[Stromnessbees]

neonicotinoid pesticides used on trees and flowers?

Are any fellow London beekeepers getting any honey in yet?

In a normal year from my 2-4 colonies I would have had a good bit of surplus from early flowers and fruit blossom and now be looking complacently at a Lime flow - but there hasn't been a single fully capped frame yet and the bees are bringing in just enough to cover their own needs, even though the lime is now flowering.

I am in suburbia rather than inner-city - medium sized gardens, lots of flowers for a long season and plenty of fruit trees, but nowhere near a field of rape or anything else. Normally we get a long and generous honey season. Not this year....

Mel

I suspect that a lot of the trees and flowering borders in London have been treated with these systemic pesticides. This could be dangerous for your bees, as well as reducing the number of aphids that might contribute to your honey harvest by providing honeydew.

Best make an enquiry at the local authorities and check what's been used in your area, keep a special watch out for drenches applied to tree roots as well as stem injections.

 

[Winker]

Yet 36 miles north of London i got 124Lb of spring honey from 3 hives

 

[Tom Bick]

I suspect that a lot of the trees and flowering borders in London have been treated with these systemic pesticides. This could be dangerous for your bees, as well as reducing the number of aphids that might contribute to your honey harvest by providing honeydew.

Best make an enquiry at the local authorities and check what's been used in your area, keep a special watch out for drenches applied to tree roots as well as stem injections.

Thats interesting Stromnessbees and why would you suspect that? Is this something that happens in Scotland?

The only spraying I am aware of was a few years ago and if my memory serves me right it was to get a caterpillar of a particular moth that was carrying a fungus or something that was killing the flowering cherry trees and then they told people where and when spraying was taking place but you had to look for the information.

My bees are within the London Borough of Hounslow and its hard to imaging them spraying anything unless its a major problem as with the cherry trees.

Last year a beekeeping buddy took off a late super of very dark quite runny honey with a strong flavor,I had seen nothing like it before and we put it down to honeydew? but then I dont know what honeydew honey looks like.

 

[djg]

No honey being stored with me - all income ploughed back into brood, as build-up was very much behind the curve. Still hoping for a lime surplus, though.

On another thread I noted that Beebase records 530 (five hundred and thiry) Apiaries (not colonies) within 10k of my location. On a more micro-analysis (a mile or two) and knowing our most of our LBKA membership I suspect that there is less competition for forage around my apiary than those numbers would suggest.

However, experienced London beekeepers like John Chapple and Steve Benbow have been concerned in the last couple of years about available forage/colony being diminished by new hives springing up in London due to the excessive encouragement of inexperienced beekeepers. (Granted, the aforementioned also have various degrees of commercial interests). Local associations are waking up to this threat to bee welfare as well as the prospect of a public backlash provoked by poorly-maintained bees.

So there may be local instances of "crowding out" a honey surplus in London....hope that is not the case in your location!

Fingers crossed for a hotter July.....

 

[Blacky50]

Yet 36 miles north of London i got 124Lb of spring honey from 3 hives

Is that urban or rural out of interest?

 

[Stromnessbees]

London trees poisoned?

Last year a beekeeping buddy took off a late super of very dark quite runny honey with a strong flavor,I had seen nothing like it before and we put it down to honeydew? but then I dont know what honeydew honey looks like.

Often the beekeeper cannot distiguishe honeydew from nectar, as both products can be very similar. Here in Orkney we usually get nectar and dew from sycamore at the same time, the sticky leaves with aphids are the give-away.

As soil drenches of neonics are picked up by tree roots and distributed throughout the plant, you wouldn't see any spraying going on, and yet the trees around you can be poisoned.

The killing of the aphids would have a massive knock-on effect on the local bird populations, too, as they are a major source of food for many insect-eating species.

 

[MuswellMetro]

[Qme and see themUOveTE=Tom Bic 247109] iLast yelar a beekeeping buddy took onff a late super of very dark quite runny honey with a strong flavor,I had seen nothing like it before and we put it down to honeydew? but then I dont know what honeydew honey looks like.[/QUOTE]
und that is to promote organic gardening as the insectici
we have already checked with London Boroughs of Barnet, Enfield , Islington and Haringey parks department and they all said why would we want to spray insecticide on grass and trees and parks? most London council are on the green agenda ego trip without really knowing anything about it.....LB Haringey.. said. wow! you have bees in london, can we come and see them

if there is any spraying it is going ot be golf courses spraying for leather jacket but there is not many of those in central london it is all housing and public openspace

so that leaves, allotment holders and rose growers using Bayer garden products and they only way round that is to promote organic gardening becasue the insecticide will remain in their sheds for many years after it will hopefully be banned ( anyone still got sodium chlorate weedkiller in their shed...i have)

Dark honey

Tom i had the same asnd it was so unusual i entered it in the honey show, the judge said it was honey from fermenting blackberry fruit and is only taken when bees are low on forage

it was 80#% on the refractometer but very running honey
ha

 

[Winker]

Is that urban or rural out of interest?

rural

 

[Stromnessbees]

Start asking questions!

so that leaves, allotment holders and rose growers using Bayer garden products and they only way round that is to promote organic gardening becasue the insecticide will remain in their sheds for many years after it will hopefully be banned ( anyone still got sodium chlorate weedkiller in their shed...i have)

What you are saying makes no sense at all.

I don't care if poeple keep it in their sheds for years, as long as they don't use it in their gardens.

Surely a ban stops the sale of these neurotoxins and sends out the right message: This is too dangerous to be used!

Stopping the local authorities from using it is a major issue, and everybody can contribute by starting to ask some niggling questions in the right places.

 

[beehive1234]

What should we be doing, please be more specific, perhaps we can all help.

 

[Luminos]

What should we be doing, please be more specific, perhaps we can all help.

Petitions? Lobbying MP's? What?

 

[MuswellMetro]

What you are saying makes no sense at all.
ue
I don't care if poeple keep it in their sheds for years, as long as they don't use it in their gardens.

Surely a ban stops the sale of these neurotoxins and sends out the right message: This is too dangerous to be used!

Stopping the local authorities from using it is a major issue, and everybody can contribute by starting to ask some niggling questions in the right places.

My reply was in response to the reply on trees in london are contaminated with insecticide, well that is untrue as very little if any incetidice is used by the london borough councils

why would they carry out insecticide spraying in suburban areas....our bees survive and losses are almost zero, if i move them out to the countryside, i then we have unexplained losses

your statement that lime tree as poisoned appears to be similar to a scare storey that came to us via several wildlife trust groups two years ago ..it had our comittee running around gathering info but after asking local london boroughs, the story proved without foundation JUST TELL ME WHAT DO london borough WANT to kill with this large dose of insectivde you are saying they are using...it may be a problem with your local authority but LONDON is not california which where we found the inital scare storey came from, ,we dont spray for mosquitoes or other flying inscets.... get real



ok you can get it banned but what % of the 8miliion people in London will even know what is in their insecticide,

say 25% of them have a litre spray bottle of Mr Bayers compound...so 2,000,000 kg of chemical hidden in sheds and under kitchen cupboards...it might not worry you but it does worry me

remeber DDT was banned in 1984 but significant quantities was still turning up in waste collected ten years after DDT was banned because people just used up what the had under the kitchen sink to disinfect their dustbin...until they went to buy a new packet of DDT dustbin cleaner and found it was no longer sold

please point your gun in the right direction, london council dont use Mr Bayer's insecticide,why would they need to? we have diffiuclty getting them to cut grass in parks let alone spray insects

 

[beehive1234]

DDT?

I hope for childrens sake DDT isn't around today.

No, we are talking about pesticides used by councils.

Do we know what the councils,(that we inhabit,) use?

How many of us enquire?

How many of us have the time?

We love the Honey Bee, we want to save her.