honey blank

[craigavonb]

Having kept bees for 40 years I have just experienced by worst year ever.
Whats the problem? No honey and I really mean NO honey. Put on Aipguard this morning, hives full of bees , now I just want them to overwinter and start again. Am I on my own or has anyone had the same problem

 

[BeeNice]

It's a national problem this year... have you seen the news, honey production is 60% down, which I have found with my hives, all my efforts now are to get stores up and get the bees stet up for the winter. The only good thing about this year are less wasps and a low varroa count on all my hives.
You are not alone.
steven

 

[burren]

77 1bs last year,(2 hives) one more hive this year ( 3 hives) and only 23 lbs, and little hope of any more before end of september.

 

[Sadders]

1 hive, about 4 pounds.

 

[Tom Bick]

That’s tough craig the best you can do is get your bees fit and healthy ready for the winter and hope for better times next year.

I don’t know but if we knew your general location other than the UK others may be able to say if they are in the same boat as you or if it was their bees that got all the honey this year.

Good luck with next year.

 

[Polyanwood]

Where are you craig? Sounds like the forage and weather problen has hit you badly. Bad luck. I got the timing of my shook swarms wrong this year and got the year off to a disastrous start. They had syrup on them, but the 3 weeks of rain meant they had no pollen at all.

 

[enrico]

For some reason this year has been really good for me. All our spring flow flowers came at once, the early warm spell built the hive up, there was a lapse till the spring flowers came out and then they feasted on them. Since then no flow except for a bit of lime but still better for me than last year!

 

[For want of a better word]

My small number of Cornish Black bee colonies have done quite well, honeywise, considering their compact size!
The Buckspins seem to have already consumed anything they supered already, and on inspection some were really down on stores within the brood.... has been an exceptional year for swarms of that ilk coming in.
The New Zealands not anything as good as previous years.... but then have not been swarmy at all.
All we can do now is hope that we do not have another winter of losses like 2007?
Feed with Thymolated syrup, treat for Varroa with Apiguaard or similar... and vaporize with OA mid winter.... live in hope...












die in despair!

 

[REDWOOD]

Mine done extremely well this year 3 supers full on 3 hives, probably the farmers left the hay because of bad weather which allowed a good crop of clover and bees piling in heather at the moment but need some dry weather

 

[TOBY-3652]

3 hives last year 220 lb.. This year 8 hives 200 lb of osr honey and up to now 110 lb of balsom and hopefully 100 lb more to come. I must add that last year i had no balsom honey but i did have some spring osr

 

[biglongdarren]

i supered 5 hives and should have around 8 full supers,lifted a super off last week and it weighed 39pounds,my one hive that i moved to the heather has nearly two supers filled,wishing now i had have moved more.
Darren

 

[Hivemaker.]

Not been a good season by any means,in fact looking pretty dire on the honey front up until around mid july when things picked up quite well in this area,most filling up three supers plus part of their second brood box,some of these second broods are now being back filled quite well,others are still keeping them laid up,which is good as still several over wintering nucs to make up from these.
Most of the honey has come from the bell,with a fair amount of bramble and a little clover during the hot spell.
Have extracted the first ton and a half from the bees that were de supered and moved out over the moors, a little closer to the ling..the supers on these are slowly filling as well,most have filled one super,some a bit more,and no doubt more in the top brood boxes as they contract. Plenty more full supers to remove in the next couple of weeks on the hives that were not moved,a few not so full ones as well from the later weaker colonys. The surprising bit is that most of the drone providers with thousands of drones to feed,and four full size drone combs in each colony, managed in excess of one hundred pounds of honey collected per colony, mostly from the clover during the hot spell.
Been a very low swarming year which is good,bees still out working in the showery weather today,still very warm,and the Buckfasts seem to cope extremely well in seasons like this one.