Honey harvest times in London

[GregBeekeeper]

Hi all,

I am not new to beekeeping having kept bees in London for 15 years before other priorities made me give it up for a while. But I'm back now after hmm.. about 20 years, after building up a cast I found by chance over 2 winters.

I used never to take the Spring crop (Horse Chestnut here) off them but wait till the Lime tree harvest in the summer before harvesting. But I have 4 supers on this hive, more than I have experienced for this time of year when I kept bees before, ok 2 full, one half full and the other being built (I put it on to keep the wax workers busy and put off the swarming, plus something ready for the next flow).

I have noticed a change in the seasons, and my question is whether other beekeepers in the UK, London in particular, do a Spring harvest, or whether people think better to leave it on for them to weather the seasonal gap and harvest in late summer?

All thoughts welcome...

 

[Tom Bick]

It all depends how tall you want the hive to get Greg or if you can store full supers and not to mention the spare kit, the two empty supers will soon get filled with the Lime Trees if anything like last year is to go by.

East Sheen I know reasonably well plenty of lovely back gardens with many flowers and trees to visit and as you mention the Limes not far behind.

Personally if it was me and you have two full supers I would extract and put the supers back on the hive for the next crop this way you will have separation of spring and summer crops and will be able to compare the two, you can always do this later of course.

I look after a hive at Kingston Vale and it has 3 supers on at the moment the third is getting ready for the brambles and in anticipation of the Limes the hive was going great guns but had to make the decision to take a nuc off it as it was a shade to big for the garden in my opinion and for once the bees did not play the game as I wanted them to start to swarm and I bet now that I have reduced them in numbers they will want to swarm.

I will be passing through Sheen later today and will lookout for your bees.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I look after a hive at Kingston Vale and it has 3 supers on at the moment the third is getting ready for the brambles and in anticipation of the Limes the hive was going great guns

I am so envious. The rain here has bashed the flowers to bits!

 

[GregBeekeeper]

Thanks for the ideas, yes it comes down to practicalities in the end. Rather than harvest or store to one side, when (not if!) they decide to swarm and I use an artificial swarm management technique I could divide the honey stock and stick the empties on the swarm colony and leave the honey with the parent hive...Or I could take some off them now and jar it.

 

[GregBeekeeper]

Yes I'm just south of Richmond Park. I rescued a tiny cast from the rain a couple of summers ago in this park, carried it off in a plastic bag and hived it as I still had my old hives and some old combs. Then managed to get them through the winter with a small crop (40 pounds) last year and this Spring sorted out the brood chamber to give the queen good space to lay. Now I have a pretty strong colony, though I have some learning to do with regards to changes in bee diseases/parasites since I last kept them, notably varrhoa mite for which I treated them last August.

 

[oliver90owner]

GregBeekeeper,

Welcome to the forum.

With regards varroa; keep at them - or the mites will get too numerous for colony health. It is far easier to keep the mites in check than try to recover the situation after the mites have started to seriously affect the brood.

Several ways of keeping their numbers down - see the DEFRA booklet or on-line copy for the range of strategies.

Some give a winter oxalic acid treatment and little else, relying on the mites starting at low levels in the spring but I likedon't (normally) and prefer to take any and every opportunity to reduce them throughout the season - shook swarm, treat at A/S, drone culling, etc.

The most iportant thing is to keep a regular watch on the infestation levels (monitoring), so that you get a feel for the rate of build up and are ready to take serious action against the mites if their numbers exceed a safe value.

You were right to treat them just before the winter bees were being brooded, as I reckon that is the most important time for a minimun varoa count - so the winter bees are healthy at emergence.

Regards, RAB

 

[Tom Bick]

Yes I'm just south of Richmond Park. I rescued a tiny cast from the rain a couple of summers ago in this park, carried it off in a plastic bag and hived it as I still had my old hives and some old combs. Then managed to get them through the winter with a small crop (40 pounds) last year and this Spring sorted out the brood chamber to give the queen good space to lay. Now I have a pretty strong colony, though I have some learning to do with regards to changes in bee diseases/parasites since I last kept them, notably varrhoa mite for which I treated them last August.

Hi Greg I don’t know where I got East Sheen from it’s the wrong side of Richmond Park to you.

You are right the Varroa will be the big change in beekeeping you will notice and the hives now are nearly always on open mesh floors.

I don’t know if you know Kingston Beekeepers Association but they are a great little club with some good people it may be of interest to you http://www.kingstonbeekeepers.org.uk/

All the best it sounds as though your bees are going great especially from a difficult start.