Good or Bad year?

[davemacdon]

So I have asked all the 1st year beeks if they have started well.
Now for all the experienced beeks:-

I have had a pretty poor year (as guaged by myself!)
I am in East Oxfordshire. 2 hives, no honey to remove. A couple of swarms and queen problems.

Has this year been a good year for you and your bees so far?

Please include your general location when replying so that the readers can build up a mental map of this years good areas. I realise that the area doesn't always make the yeild good, but the practice has a lot of input into it.

Dave.

 

[the naked beekeeper]

I had a good year.
Well above average.
Average being 0 for me.
This is my 3rd year as a beek and the first 2 I spent making increase and trying and failing with swarm control. (I still haven't mastered it!!) As well as selectively mating my queens in a semi-isolated apiary with native bees.

So it's my first ever honey crop!

Still a steep learning curve though!

 

[Simon]

Mixed year for me.

At one new apiary in Gloucestershire, started with 2 nucs that have built up well and each have 1 full super to extract next week. Much better that I had expected. Also picked up a really nice, calm swarm which should hopefully overwinter well.

At my other apiaries, some hives have done well, but others struggled. My main out apiary (on Glos/Worcs border) did really well in Spring, with 3 hives yielding nearly 60kg extracting in May and June. Don't think I lost any swarms, but 2 hives superseded and the new queens took a while to come into lay (at least 6 weeks). Meanwhile, of the 4 swarms I collected, only one stuck around and then stopped laying. I created two new colonies from a double mini-nuc, and they are doing well, but I doubt will have any honey to take.

Summer crop is being extracted today. 5 full supers from 2 hives at the out apiary. I moved one hive from there to the home apiary, and despite doing well in Spring, it's not collected much honey in its new home, as it was one of the queen taking a while to lay. In the home apiary, it is one of 2 full size colonies (the second starting this year as split from a full double mini-nuc). I'll give them another week or two as they are still out and about, but I don't expect to get much. Perhaps a super if I'm lucky.

 

[enrico]

Mid wales/shropshire, had an odd year with a swarm as late as last week. Thought I would get little honey but they have had a late flow of something and a couple of hives will bring in about 50lbs.
Started with two at the beginning of the year. Now have four strong and one swarm collected last week. The lime was disappointing as the frost had all the flowers but all in all, a good enough year to keep me in honey and a likelihood of getting into winter with strong hives. Main problem . No rain no nectar!! Yes and on the Welsh border too!!!
E

 

[viridens]

It's been a good year for bees, but a very bad year for honey. My hives are very full of healthy and busy bees, but the forage has been poor, not helped by the early drought which wrote off the rape nectar. I am seeing supers almost filled and then almost emptied again after a few days of poor weather.
I have only been able to take about 12lbs so far, and that was from individual completed frames from a few hives. I may be able to take a bar or two from my new TBH which is likewise bursting with bees.
Unless there is a sudden turn around in weather and an unusually strong late flow, that could well be it for this year. And some winter feeding may be needed too. Not a good year!

 

[bees4u]

I've had a good early year in Kent, had trouble with absconding virgins but all in all a good honey crop so far, still extracting at the moment. The bees ate a lot of the honey when we had the very wet weather but seemed to have managed to some more in. Regards Jean

 

[Beezy]

My 2nd year has been really good - bees thriving and lots of honey produced from my one hive. They swarmed while I was on honeymoon but even so have rapidly made up the numbers again. And I've had no stings this year! (knocks on wood)

 

[sunshinemedic]

It has been a good year for me in South London. After failing to get any honey in 2 years I switched to poly and have 5 dadant (modified) supers of honey from an overwintered hive and 2 National Supers from a nuc which started in early June.

 

[Rosti]

Dave, sad to say, I am with you, I perceive mine to be a poor / challenging year, but with some useful learnings. My 4th season started with the loss of 2/4 hives late in the winter (warm period in Jan then cold again feb did for them) - moved away from stores and then contracted. 3rd hive went queenless in April, too early for queens so combined. Then there was 1!
Farmer changed crops this year. Last 3 were rape followed by field beans, brilliant combination for bees. This year all barley, boy have they had a hard time!
Going into winter with 5 hives & 1 nuc, but only because I am on the swarm list. Got a couple of good swarms early in the season, my last swarm that will probably get combined was today (21-08) - really!
Crop: Took a super from the remaining hive end May, looks like there are another 2 to take now. all the others are on self build-up for the winter.
Learnings: Normal autumn syrup feed up for me but will add a block of fondant over the feed holes in Nov and will monthly check them (previously just did a Xmas check and OA). Will keep fondant topped up all winter as a central reserve. Mine are on 14x12 and I regard them as holding sufficient for the winter without a super - but the two that died isolated themselves from good stored quantities nonetheless, hence the fondant trail this winter.

 

[chipper]

South Devon: Bumper spring harvest of OSR followed by a short spate of swarming mid May.
About 10% of colonies split or swarmed....of 120....
Then 2 weeks of spring gap.
Summer harvest good... apiaries extracted so far seem to be predominantly clover/lime mix... excellent flavour.
Had to give up on colony inspections to get the spring honey extracted....
as a result lost only 2 swarms after 1st June....

 

[Mike a]

The true test for me is how many make it through Winter 2011 if I only have 0-3 loses I'll be delighted. However I've had a good year if I go on the primary goal for the season which was to increase my number of colonies and I've learnt a lot.

In terms of honey, I was hoping to get more but I'm estimating another 40-50 lbs when I get round to taking it off and extracting + my spring crop and I'm in to the 3 digits.

"Next year will be a good year" - How many times have you heard this saying

 

[simonf]

My second year and it had to be better than my first year, started with 2 hives, 15 pound of honey of the rape from 1 hive, which is'nt good I know, another 19 pound of another in july, collected 3 swarms, after some ASs etc have 9 colonies now some stronger than others might unite some of them later on, looking this week might have some honey to extract from 3 hives so had a good year by my standards, its all in the planning though, so should be even better prepared for next year hopefully.

 

[newportbuzz]

well i had a brilliant year
its the end of my second season and i came through the winter having lost 2/3 of my hives leaving me with 1 so i set about rebuilding and by july i had built up to 5 strong stocks 4 new queens i have ALSO taken just over 40 lbs of honey (clover mainly) and one hive is at the heather as i speak so fingers crossed. so all in all very happy with the year so far.
location co mayo ireland

 

[beeatshellards]

I have had a great year( in n e essex) started with no hives due to loosing 5 last year due to poisoning, by pesticide use( not by me I might add ) now have 4 hives up and productive , dont know my yield yet but at least 9 supers to extract this week, bees thriving so happy days

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Started off badly with very aggressive bees and several botched queen introductions. One lot swarmed.

Finished off well(pre winter of course), three colonies up from two, nicely natured. No honey to speak of, but that's of little concern.

 

[YorkshireBees]

South Yorkshire

Good / mediocre / Bad year for all different reasons.

My plan was to increase using some of my stock / swarms and at the same time take a decent honey crop from the others.

Good.
Experience of anti-swarming methods. (Not that it all worked out!)
110lbs of Rape Seed Honey
Increased to 12 reasonably strong colonies and 2 nucs. (>100% increase)
General experience gained through having so many hives to look after.

Mediocre.
Weather causing un-predictable Nectar flows.
Not all anti-swarming worked.

Bad.
My original plan was to allow the bees to collect at least one super each of winter stores and then just harvest the surplus so I didn't have to run about like crazy pre-winter feeding!
Seems like I will have to feed some, if not most of my colonies.
Due to weather Summer honey crop will not be that high (still waiting to see what I can harvest, possibly 1-4 supers).

In general a very interesting year (not always for the good) but plenty of experience learned and a real honey crop for the first time!

 

[Jimmy]

Mixed winter as in Autumn 2010 had 4 full size colonies and a nuc. The nuc succumbed to isolation starvation and one colony was Q- by April.
From there, have increased to 5 colonies through swarms and AS. Poor queen mating has been a problem this year as I could potentially have had 9 colonies.

Honey - the spring drought meant only 45lbs spring/OSR honey. Continued drought has given a poor main flow yield of ~40lbs extracted and 15-20 round sections. The slow flow means the sections are of personal use quality only as they haven't filled all the section.
Based on 2009 + 2010, I've got half the yield I could have hoped for. Lack of rain is the main factor IMHO.

Two hives have gone to the heather so there is still scope to improve.

 

[onriver]

Mixed also,from my perspective. I was pleased to have all 4 hives come through the winter, race away (4 weeks ahead of schedule this spring?!) splits and AS meant we now have 10 hives and nucs after selling 4 so should mean we do some combining and go into winter with around 8 so 100% increase plus the £400 made from the nucs means we covered our costs and can replace kit in the winter sales for the first time.Very pleased by that!
2 down sides - the speed of increase and lack of cash meant I spent most of my spare time building kit ( I can at least now turn out a new hive from scrap wood!)
No honey spare - the early build up was quickly used to cover the dry 6 weeks we had where a lot of new bees had no nectar flow and came close to starving. The only decent flow seems to be at the moment so I'm not giving up yet and have my eye on a couple of hives which seem to be able to store when others aren't for next year's increases. I think I'll be lucky to get a couple of supers worth.
This year seems to have been an even steeper learning curve than previous ones and highlighted how much I don't know!
Always next year though

 

[Tom_Pearce]

North of Scotland - Moray

Interesting year... First full year in beekeeping, and the early spring here caught me out with a swarm end of April (disappeared) and a cast not long after (caught and housed - then absconded by next morning). Spent the rest of the year building up the colony again and my hopes of splits and a second colony dashed. Long wet spell meant delay in mating new queen, but now have a thriving colony and one half filled super. Little flow now, though unless the ivy gives something later in the season. I think the bees will require the stores that they have laid down, but I might be tempted to sample one frame of our own honey!

Steep learning curve, and lots of lessons for next year. Now to see them through the winter...

 

[Arfermo]

Poor year (only 60 odd lbs of honey compared with 263 last year) not helped by a "friend" who mid May offered me a nuc without asking so as to replace the colony I lost in winter and then who made every excuse under the sun for not delivering. By the time I got a nuc started with a bought in queen that was supposed to be mated/laying but didn't do anything for 6 weeks - possibly due to robbing by sisters in adjacent hive and carting it 20 miles to settle it down - it was too weak and late to unite with smallish colony. Another better pal has now offered to add frames of brood and to feed it until spring. Since the Q is supposed to be rather special, that's worth a prezzie bottle of single malt I reckon.