Happy New year fellow beekeepers. What are your aspirations?

[Erichalfbee]

when counting Varroa drop after Apivar in the Autumn found that both swarms had no drop whatsoever in spite of the fact that both had loads of brood.

That’s where the mites are so you can’t count them

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

the answer seems to be that because of the gap in laying, the mites die off

That's a new one!

 

[E&MBees]

Keep colony numbers steady at 8, there abouts. Build on my first tentative steps in queen rearing.

 

[Erichalfbee]

That's a new one!

There’s a gap in their reproduction as there is no brood but to claim they die off is stretching it…… massively.
Whoever gave that answer needs to go back to Bee School

 

[Nannysbees]

Going to try get my other 3 single broods onto double (plan to try 2 Demeree and just adding a second brood box to the other early in the new season). I have 8 queens ordered for the 25th of May so going to try get a number of 2 frame splits done up to cater for these and get my hive count up to 12.

Tried a demaree the year before last but failed miserably, left it to late, haven't tried since. Difficult knowing when is the optimum time!!!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Difficult knowing when is the optimum time!!!

When you start seeing slabs of drone brood and flying drones

 

[Nannysbees]

Thank you, I'll keep my out for that, we did the set up as instructed with the queen in the bottom box, but we lost her

 

[Erichalfbee]

But No queen cells !!!!

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Bought-in queen survives and I can requeen some of my defensive mongrels with her offspring. Hives seem to have been grumpy most of the year which has put me off doing much practice in handling drones and queens.
Mark queens competently. (same as last year)
Be more ruthless swapping out old brood comb.

 

[Murox]

My aim is to keep the number of live hives constant and produce a few nuc colonies to give to new keepers in the area.
Please god can we have some pleasant stable summer weather.

 

[sarahcorlett2566]

I’m hoping my four colonies will still be alive and well after the winter (they are all still showing signs of activity so far) then when it’s warm enough I’m going to try and mark my queens in anticipation of a Bailey Comb Change (for my nuc that are on standard national frames in a 14x12 with insulated dummy boards, so nice and toasty, to get them onto properly sized frames) and also prepare for a potential Demaree of the others if the signs are there: one at least I think will be developed enough to think about swarming. I’ve made all the requisite kit (I think) so just need to be prepared and take a deep breath! Great advice on this forum about all the things I need to think about doing so thank you.

 

[Moobee]

Have a go at queen rearing
Keep number of hives/colonies below 10
Mentor a newbie
Get my AH queen traps out next month
Learn more about AHs to find ways to combat them
Hopefully increase honey production so I can do a few more fairs

 

[StephenT]

Move 3 of the 5 hives in the garden to our nearby allotment site if we ever get a prolonged cold spell. Otherwise just move them and put some magic twigs outside the entrance
Get at least one more outlet to sell the honey.
Proper varroa monitoring (sugar roll).
Will try a Demaree again as it’s always fun to find you have a newly mated queen in the top box.
Meet some more forumites. Met Will briefly a few weeks back which was great.
Be more ruthless at combining hives before the summer flow or at the end of the season.

 

[The Poot]

There’s a lot of ruthlessness going on this year…..

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

There’s a lot of ruthlessness going on this year…..

world shortage of ruths?

 

[JamezF]

world shortage of ruths?

Could be. The only one I can recall ever meeting is Ruth Jones (of Gavin & Stacey fame). She was the girlfriend of a friend when I was at uni.

James

 

[Curly green finger's]

Increasing colony’s by 65% at home .
Going to hopefully rear 150 queens in a view to have at least 100 mated .
Looking at having a bee house up nearer the summit on my farmer friends land.
Changing label design and having both 12 and 8 oz jars .
Going to do more fairs and get myself networking more.
Making lots of candles and god knows what else.

Ploughing more money into tch equipment and stuff!

 

[Wilco]

There’s a lot of ruthlessness going on this year…..

Sounds Amazonian.

 

[elainemary]

What a great idea to share goals and ideas for this coming season.

Last year my focus was to reduce apiaries from 4 to 3 and reduce colonies from 13 to 9 (give some wriggle room so not more than 10!). I set myself a goal to become proficient in microscopy and I wanted to practise grafting more. Managed the colony reduction and it was a rubbish summer so did a lot of microscope stuff and passed my assessment last month. Poor summer weather meant all ideas of queen rearing went out the window.

So this year my focus is to maintain my colonies at no more than 10 and practise grafting and queen rearing. I want to spend more time with a couple of beekeepers I respect and I’ve applied for an NDB course on queen rearing. Working my way towards my passing my Advanced husbandry but haven’t decided whether to go for it this year or take my time.
Like to learn and keep challenging myself.

 

[rolande]

Ploughing more money into tch equipment and stuff!

What's tch equipment?

Always worry when I hear of money being ploughed into equipment..

Edit: if you can do without it for the time being you may well find it much cheaper in an auction in a couple of years.