Charlock??

[Mellifera397]

Hello everyone,

I went for a walk before going to my bees yesterday and I found an field of yellow flowers which I have convinced myself is a field of Charlock, saw it in Hooper.

on inspection I found that mny tiny colony (3 frames of brood 2 weeks ago) has reduced its brood area to 2 frames and filled 7 national brood frames with nectar. Clearlky there has been a flow and I am presuming that it is from this field about half a mile from my apiary.

Hooper states that Charlock honey granulates quickly, I was thinking that I could put a super on and hope that they move the nectar up but I'm not sure exactly what I ought to do. Any advice welcomed.


M

 

[SwiftOtter]

I always thought that Charlock is an arable weed which is closely related to oil seed rape but is not grown deliberately, that is what I was told when I worked one summer at the Plant Breeding Institute (before it was sold off to Monsanto...) so a whole field of it seems unlikely.

 

[Mellifera397]

Thats exactly what hooper says but I'm certain that its charlock. I'll post photos asap.

M

 

[Mellifera397]

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How do I deal with this honey in brood combs??

M

 

[Mellifera397]

Should I treat the resultant honey like OSR?

M

 

[poshpikey]

it is possible to see a whole field of it. I have got it flowering here at the moment. This is on an organic farm. Less common now as it generally gets sprayed off. I think it is earlier this year than last year because last year I remember seeing a field (on the next door organic farm) of it after the OSR had stopped flowering.

 

[REDWOOD]

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How do I deal with this honey in brood combs??

M

Depends on what you want to do with it, you could remove the frames and replace with comb or foundation and give it back when needed or bruise the stores and add a super and hope they move it up. what ever your decision the queen needs more room..... fast

 

[Mellifera397]

Oh I forgot to mention that as an emergency short term measure I moved the empty frames at the edge of the brood chamber to the edge of the brood nest to extend the laying room for the queen.

M

 

[REDWOOD]

Well done

 

[Midland Beek]

Your colony needs space to extend into and as long as you are providing that they should build up nicely. Drawing out wax is quite energy intensive and requires warmth. So if you use a simple bit of logic you can manipulate the frames to make the work easier for them. Sticking a frame of foundation in the middle of the brood would be a spanner in the works, but you get the idea.

What they in? A single BS Deep? If so, that ain't big enough these days as a brood area. lots of people run two deep boxes as a brood area.

 

[Mellifera397]

They are on a single deep, I tried double brood last year but found that they just filled the top chamber with honey. My bees aren't that prolific so I'm leaving them on single brood this year. I have enough drawn out comb to replace the combs that are filled with nectar but I would like to save the honey and my combs.

I'm going to put a super on tomorrow and bruise all of the cappings to get them to move it.

M