Have you achieved your goals this season?

[jeff33]

Yes hard to juggle if you work as well. I was happy to have more time for myself this summer rather than driving around apiaries.

 

[simonforeman]

YES... Bought job lot of equipment in Feb that at the time I didn't know had 2 colonies included. Moved them 100 miles home but in April 1 died out so had 1...
Got that hive to double brood now. Caught 2 swarms neither were any of mine and bought 1 queen and made up a nuc. Now have 3 colonies in national bb, All bursting with bees and a nuc building up to over winter with a ex swarm queen that looked too good to squish when completing my succesful newspaper combine. Have 3 full supers of honey and 3 other supers nearly all drawn and part filled.

So have loads of drawn comb and super comb after starting out with foundation and completed s succesful combine and queen in cage intro.... so all in all I've learnt allot from the guys on here and don't more than I thought I would.... now to get them through winter

 

[B+.]

I discovered that not all Carnica colonies swarm at the drop of a hat Thank you B+ For a couple of excellent queens

It's nice to hear from a satisfied customer. When you think that one of them was destined to be squished to make room for new stock, it shows that even older queens can still produce the goods

 

[B+.]

My Dad died in January.
My inheritance from his estate enabled me to buy things ( e.g. https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/album.php?albumid=751&pictureid=3910) I wouldn't have been able to finance without it. I hope he doesn't feel it was a frivolous use of the money.

 

[simonforeman]

B+.... I'm sure he's happy you buying things that make you happy and enjoy doing...

 

[BeeSpace]

My goal for this season: get bees.
Outcome: got bees.

Now let's see if I can keep bees!

 

[Angry_Mob]

My goal for this season: get bees.
Outcome: got bees.

Now let's see if I can keep bees!

Moving up from a be(e)getter to a beekeeper.

 

[Newbeeneil]

B+.... I'm sure he's happy you buying things that make you happy and enjoy doing...

 

[masterBK]

Moving up from a be(e)getter to a beekeeper.

The next move up is when the bees keep you.

 

[Walrus]

Good year for me so far. I moved bees to a new apiary, so now I have two apiaries, both in lovely spots.

Made my own queens from larvae grafted from my best queen. 12 grafts resulted in 9 sealed QCs which gave me 7 mated queens, which I'm happy with. Next year I'll try for 20.

Plenty of delicious honey, one of my best years.

Visited 3 beekeepers in New Zealand, one in Somerset and one in France. Next stop California.

Started up 2 new beekeepers by giving them bees and equipment.

 

[madasafish]

Raise queens again (14) . Tick
Lots more honey (more than double last year) Tick
Minimal swarming (1 only) Tick.
Sort my back out to avoid back pain.(lots of twisting exercises) Tick

Find time to decorate and beekeep at same time (?) Abject fail.

 

[BeeSpace]

Moving up from a be(e)getter to a beekeeper.

The next move up is when the bees keep you.

And then I'll be a beeliever

 

[Angry_Mob]

Don't beelittle yourself.

 

[BeeSpace]

Don't beelittle yourself.

 

[JWF]

My goals for 2018 (from this thread. https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=41300 ) :

End the year with no more hives than I started with. Tick - but had to make increase to offset winter losses
Requeen any colonies which have older queens as early in the year as possible (to hopefully minimise swarming and to give strong colonies). Tick but still had a couple of swarms.
Don't piss the neighbours off too much. Oops - my grumpy colony in May unfortunately stung quite a few of the neighbours.
Find an out apiary - preferably one with interesting flora close by. Found an out (emergency) apiary but although it has good spring forage it's lacking in summer forage.

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

To come out of the Winter with the three colonies in good condition - one failed, but has been replaced by a captured swarm. To produce a honey harvest - best yet. To continue to learn and not lose my love of the little beasties - successful.
To make contacts and buddy up with local keepers - unsuccessful. Largely through lack of time and too many other commitments- so keep on the agenda for the Winter months.

 

[DaveG23]

My first year, working with my father in law who has kept bees for years but in recent years has been down to 1 hive. Our goal was to get more bees/make increase.

Started with 1 existing hive on double brood commercial. We then bought x 2 national nucs.

Hived the nucs, both tried to swarm within a month. So split those and now have x 2 in nationals and x 2 in poly nucs all with laying queens.

The original colony on the double bb gave off a huge prime swarm that is now housed and happy.

I also had a swarm move in to a hive in my garden.

So as things stand from 1 hive up to 7, we are both quite happy that we have met our objectives so far.

 

[Podilia]

My goal was to get 1 ton of honey this summer. Almost all my colonies were able to do that job. Instead they lost a lot of worker bees in June because farmers decided to earn as much money as possible using illegal pesticides. I estimate 40% of workers were killed with unknown chemicals and piled under the hives. Nevertheless colonies survived, the brood remained healthy. My bees pollinated sunflower and buckwheat of those idiots who perhaps lost 20-30% of yield because of poor pollination. I suppose all apiaries in the nearest villages were struggling in the first half of summer. You can read more about it in my thread.
Recently I extracted 10 kg (22 lb) per hive in average. I used to have 40-50 kg, so this outcome is very bad but not so bad compare to many beekeepers who extracted nothing. For example a man wrote his 70 colonies have dwindled to 5 frames and couldnt take syrup.
So my goal of 1 ton of honey is not completed.
I planned to increase to 50-55 colonies. Now I have 41 units. Some of nucs is too small to overwinter but I'll try to manage them to get stronger during the following two months. Obviously this is a failure but the bees are alive.

 

[For want of a better word]

No... a thoughtless individual brought in some very nasty things into my " isolated" mating area... 10 years of work... TITS UP !!

Yeghes da

 

[SDM]

No... a thoughtless individual brought in some very nasty things into my " isolated" mating area... 10 years of work... TITS UP !!

Yeghes da

Whilst it's obviously a crappy thing to happen . I'd question "thoughtless " im sure it's not widely known that you have exclusive rights to the Tamar valley and if it was known then as a conscious act it's still not "thoughtless ".
So a seasons queens are junked, how does that trash the work already done ?