Regrettably I wasn't able to join in - can someone write a synopsis of the main points - or is there a way I could see/hear a recording ??
I always make a few notes on my phone whilst watching so I can re-read and reflect later. Notes only - it did run to over 2 hours! I was multi-tasking during part of it so some of the detail might be lost. Also as questions asked throughout Murray had to switch the order of his talk a lot & reflected in my notes. Here you go…
Murray McGregor CBKA Heather honey in Scotland Nov21
Murray had 4588 hives on the heather this year!
50 colonies for bee breeding & Jolanta raises 1200 Nucs per year
Very migratory set up. Most crucial decision is choosing a wintering site
Some wintering sites have 250 hives proven for good over wintering
Guidelines: Site where bees can get winter flight . Inside the hive must be dry, good air drainage ie top of hill better than bottom of hill. Not in a frost pocket or where damp. Good amount of spring pollen around. Alder and yew good spring pollen. Means bees that over winter well start spring well
Works on 4 supers per hive
Bottom bee space hive needs more cleaning 40% more work vs top bee space, prefers top bee space
3% protein in ling vs 0.1% in regular honey which is responsible for thixotropic nature of heather honey
Heather honey extraction - Warm room & agitate thixotropic honey, takes 30mins before becomes thixotropic again so need to extract quickly after agitating
100-120 tonnes of heather honey pa
Have to have a tangential extractor with swinging baskets, a radial doesn’t have enough force to spin it out properly
Uses a version of Demaree for swarm control. Uses modified crownboard to let bees fly from split on the back. Leaves just one queen cell after a week, removes the rest. Or can use a queen cell from queen rearing. Bottom half produces the honey. Top half makes new queen.
Bring both through to July and when bottom one gets too big double brood it. Applies to top too. Can split top box off if want increase or if old queen v good and want to keep her she can go into a Nuc.
Or can reunite, if in a flow take split board away as busy ness stops fighting. Or uses air freshener. Doesn’t use newspaper. Let’s bees decide which queen to keep! 80% colonies have the young queen and 15% have old queen and 5% have both queens in the spring
Averages 28 kilos heather honey pa per colony
80% of production is heather
103 heather sites 20-90 hives on each site. 4 distinct microclimates to spread risk of crop failure. Wind off the sea can stop heather flow. Start of august to first 10 days is peak production, bees have short working life on moors. Lose a lot of bees on the moors to spiders! Always make mistake of putting too many boxes , bees fill in downwards in boxes as brood emerges
Start harvesting around 10 September
Choose site in a bowl and heather all around. Ruthless re records and choosing right site
Always leaves foundation hanging short.
Uses straight wires embedded into frames then hot wires wax (foundation goes into groove)
Puts straw onto feeder, no dividers or barriers and run up into straw and clean out the syrup. Also combine with drawing foundation, takes out old comb and adds foundation
All sales in barrels none in jars, keeps
Operation simple. Retail Customers a distraction, takes too much time re deliveries etc!
Sells all wax to candlemakers 4-5 tonnes pa
Big believer in genetic diversity,
Resilience comes through diversity not through narrow line breeding
Have wide gene pool to select from
Best mother queens sent to Italy always sold as Piedmonte raised queens
Perthshire queen rearing, local and do well in Uk. Black mountain honey reviews
Technique for retaining breeder queen remove from full hives to nuclei. Kept to 3 frames brood. Take brood out and allowed to grow in July only so enough bees in nucleus to over winter.
All frames stored wet
Any colony with even one cell EFB gets culled. Contact colonies shook swarmed
15% autumn cull and winter losses includes drone layers or queenless in spring. Shake out.
Check Murray’s Twitter feed
Bees are resilient will survive in spite of us.
Concept of pace - what do you have to see vs nice to see. Can work colonies at greater speed. If no queen cells in central brood area won’t find it, can save time by learning to scan rather than detail
Find queens by scanning
Mark and clips all queens, delays a departure of swarms until virgins emerge
Swarming. Measure of healthy bees. Have to distinguish between swarmy bees and reached capacity and swarms. Beekeeper fault. Biggest issue is weather that prevents inspections so don’t inspect for 12 days
Always top supers
Jar of honey per colony for payment to landowners
Even comb honey is traded not sold direct. Have contracts and sold 10 years ahead.
Over winters on single brood not double brood or brood and half. 8-10 seams bees
Wooden hives tougher than poly but uses both
Fondant commercially is 3x more expensive than syrup
CBPV not significant in his operation.
Polystyrene feeder on top of every wooden hive - acts as insulation but doesn’t use insulation boards at all
Jolanta queens through Black mountain honey
Kieler mating box - more stores vs Apidea
Hives from heather get 3 gallons syrup. only honey and pollen brood box is left for the bees. Don’t feed pollen. Not an issue in his locations re pollen shortage
Uses queen excluders til mid June. Want big numbers of flying bees Aug so double deep the hives mid June. Queen excluders do cut the honey crop and increase swarming. So come off mid June when finding queen less critical
Biggest future challenge is keeping costs low and keeping business simple. Family owned and next generation will take over. Doesn’t take holidays and won’t retire. Have to have passion and love for bees to be successful commercially, plus good team
@elainemary - pretty impressive summary.
