Heather dissapoints

[mbc]

As the title really, just got back from bringing the first trailer load back from the Brecon beacons and the crop will barely cover diesel and the hired help I had getting them up there, very disappointing!
I think I may pilfer a few brood frames of honey as a lot of colonies had totally emptied what little they'd managed to gather in the supers and back filled down below, without nicking a few brood frames then I think the average crop would be less than 10 lb per colony

 

[For want of a better word]

As the title really, just got back from bringing the first trailer load back from the Brecon beacons and the crop will barely cover diesel and the hired help I had getting them up there, very disappointing!
I think I may pilfer a few brood frames of honey as a lot of colonies had totally emptied what little they'd managed to gather in the supers and back filled down below, without nicking a few brood frames then I think the average crop would be less than 10 lb per colony ��

Sorry to hear that!
Is this climate change?

Where heather once grew in abundance on Kit Hill here in the Greatgreygreenslimeytamarvalleyallsetaboutwithveggiegrowerswithnomarket....

It is now mostly gone... remnants remain...a bit of bell on top of some walls.
This due not to climate change but gross mismanagement by the people responsible for the Cornwall Council owned site.....who seem to be more concerned with a couple of rare weeds growing there!
Heather is very little poor and patchy on Dartmoor

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/23/weather/greta-thunberg-unga-climate-speech-intl/index.html
Valdrig bra Greta...
Chons da

 

[nantmoel]

I don't have to move my bees as the heather is less the ½ a mile away, I didn't get any in the hives at all. Very poor here in the Cynon Valley.

 

[Swarm]

Very disappointing reward for all that hard work.

 

[SDM]

Same here, looked and 'felt" like it should have been better.

 

[mbc]

Sorry to hear that!
Is this climate change?

Where heather once grew in abundance on Kit Hill here in the Greatgreygreenslimeytamarvalleyallsetaboutwithveggiegrowerswithnomarket....

It is now mostly gone... remnants remain...a bit of bell on top of some walls.
This due not to climate change but gross mismanagement by the people responsible for the Cornwall Council owned site.....who seem to be more concerned with a couple of rare weeds growing there!
Heather is very little poor and patchy on Dartmoor

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/23/weather/greta-thunberg-unga-climate-speech-intl/index.html
Valdrig bra Greta...
Chons da

The heather looked quite good when I had a walk up the mountain, I think it just wasn't quite right weather wise for them once up on the moor.
On the plus side the bees are looking good and don't seem to have suffered much attrition.

 

[foghornleghorn]

Same here.

 

[Beefriendly]

We took about 1/3 of our "normal" heather crop this year. The weather in our region in August was cold rainy and often very windy, not ideal foraging conditions. Heather was also badly affected by heather beetle, although there were plenty of good pink areas.
One site did better than the other , it was in a more sheltered location and the heather beetles devastation was quite severe on this moor.....so I'm putting it down to weather, not the heather or the beetle.
We had similar with our summer crop being badly affected by weather.
June was wet and windy...no honey. July fine, they were bringing it in for fun (thank goodness). August off the moors was as bad as on them...took about 40 lbs of Balsam honey off a couple of hives mid Sept....and that was it.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Same here, quite poor return from most of the apiaries, hoping though it will be a wee bit better at the home apiary, but even then it's going to be a matter of a barely full super from each hive. Although the heather looks pretty good when the sun was out in full force, on the whole I wasn't really exited at the colour of the heather on the Drysgol and I can see that daily from the house.
In general, I think the biggest problem on the Brecon Beacons is p!ss poor heather management, no controlled burning, the National Park Association is so ignorant as to the importance of good heather management (for either stock/wildlife management or grouse shooting - although there are no shoots on the moors) that they make it so difficult to get a burning licence that nowadays, farmers don't even bother trying to apply but sneak up there with a gallon of diesel, start wildfires then scarper leaving the flames do their worse. I have photographs of my mother and grandfather standing just off the mountain road on the glorious twelfth way back in the early sixties, calf deep in vivid purple heather. I know the exact spot, now there's hardly a stalk to be seen for miles.
Good news is, they are starting to fight back with a spraying programme to kill off the bracken which has taken over from the heather in the foothills, just hope that, when the heather comes back, they'll start managing it properly.

 

[Bryang]

Heather is within 5oomtres of my hives, but my bees don't seem to bother with it, I think because there is more "fruitful" forage in the area...Last year there was a very bad mountain fire between Maerdy and Ferndale, the village where I live. It destroyed a very large area of heather...

 

[Poly Hive]

Hmm some might like to look at ITLD's twitter feed.

PH

 

[Beefriendly]

What does it say?....sorry but I don't "do" twitter..or Facebook etc.

 

[Repwoc]

What does it say?....sorry but I don't "do" twitter..or Facebook etc.

https://twitter.com/calluna4u?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

 

[Erichalfbee]

Hmm some might like to look at ITLD's twitter feed.

PH

His expectations were of a poor harvest
He's been surprised

 

[Swarm]

Did he have hives in the Beacons?

 

[Poly Hive]

Not sure as most of his posts are re fering to the Scottish moors. No doubt he will be along soon after this last surge of activity.

PH

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I'll ask him next Wednesday, but the chances of him bothering himself taking bees to the BBNP I think is pretty slim
There is one hell of a difference between the managed moors of Scotland and the badly mismanaged moors of the Brecon beacons

 

[ericbeaumont]

His expectations were of a poor harvest
He's been surprised

Surrey heath produced nothing in the 2019 drought, but this year intermittent rain and warm weather in early July helped to give just over 50lbs/colony of (mostly) bell. Zero from ling, which seemed to flower and fade at the same time in the late heatwave.

Noticed that they manage old heather and cut it to the ground.

 

[Newbeeneil]

Surrey heath produced nothing in the 2019 drought, but this year intermittent rain and warm weather in early July helped to give just over 50lbs/colony of (mostly) bell. Zero from ling, which seemed to flower and fade at the same time in the late heatwave.

Noticed that they manage old heather and cut it to the ground.

I was wandering over Witley common this morning Eric, they are grubbing up areas of bracken to let the adjacent heather spread.
It got me thinking for next year if I can find a site very close.

 

[Hachi]

Somerford had a bumper crop I understand so at least one in the south did ok.