Dear reader,
Well the year is on the wane now the summer solstice has passed us by. Another Glastonbury packed up and litter picked and Wimbledon about to start.
June ends on a wetter note than it began - rain on and off for the past 3 days and temperatures as much as 20 degrees lower than a couple of weeks ago where they hit almost 35.
The Maisemore sale was good - plenty of choice and very very busy. It seemed a lot of bulk purchases of frames were going on - one purchaser I recognised as a bee equipment seller from Hampshire - but I rather suspect the 40 roofs and frames were for their own stocks and not for sale.
One buyer departed with most of a pallet load of DN4 frames in a trailer....I'm sure they were paid for but it seemed the main man (Jonathan) suspected some kit was being secreted out of the side entrance to the marquee resulting in the JCB Telehandler being used to block it.
Next year I'd do things differently - lay out 30-50 empty pallets outside and allocate a pallet to a customer. They can then ferry the purchases to the pallet and when ready to pay the Maisemore guys could just walk along the line and take payment - and sticker the products as sold and ready to be loaded into a car.
The guys struggled to keep up with demand for frames - DN4 especially as well as Poly hive and poly nuc parts too. Still, they must've been pleased overall !
I was talking to a beefarmer and liked his suggestion around nuc production - they double up using the Maisemore poly nuc with a poly brood chamber on top with 6/7 frame in when the base brood chamber is filling up. The Queen and bees move upwards and they draw and fill out the brood frames above rather more quickly (especially if fed) and then one can split the nuc into 2 colonies, introducing a queen into the 2nd one, or combine into a large brood chamber and super up or even split 3 ways - then begin all over again. They over winter well this way apparently. Hence I then bought the last 5 poly nuc broodchambers !
10 Buckfast Queen bees arriving tomorrow for more late splits and a colony from an associate locally too - the weather is warming up again and the rain will have recharged the white clover !
July here we come
KR
Somerford
Well the year is on the wane now the summer solstice has passed us by. Another Glastonbury packed up and litter picked and Wimbledon about to start.
June ends on a wetter note than it began - rain on and off for the past 3 days and temperatures as much as 20 degrees lower than a couple of weeks ago where they hit almost 35.
The Maisemore sale was good - plenty of choice and very very busy. It seemed a lot of bulk purchases of frames were going on - one purchaser I recognised as a bee equipment seller from Hampshire - but I rather suspect the 40 roofs and frames were for their own stocks and not for sale.
One buyer departed with most of a pallet load of DN4 frames in a trailer....I'm sure they were paid for but it seemed the main man (Jonathan) suspected some kit was being secreted out of the side entrance to the marquee resulting in the JCB Telehandler being used to block it.
Next year I'd do things differently - lay out 30-50 empty pallets outside and allocate a pallet to a customer. They can then ferry the purchases to the pallet and when ready to pay the Maisemore guys could just walk along the line and take payment - and sticker the products as sold and ready to be loaded into a car.
The guys struggled to keep up with demand for frames - DN4 especially as well as Poly hive and poly nuc parts too. Still, they must've been pleased overall !
I was talking to a beefarmer and liked his suggestion around nuc production - they double up using the Maisemore poly nuc with a poly brood chamber on top with 6/7 frame in when the base brood chamber is filling up. The Queen and bees move upwards and they draw and fill out the brood frames above rather more quickly (especially if fed) and then one can split the nuc into 2 colonies, introducing a queen into the 2nd one, or combine into a large brood chamber and super up or even split 3 ways - then begin all over again. They over winter well this way apparently. Hence I then bought the last 5 poly nuc broodchambers !
10 Buckfast Queen bees arriving tomorrow for more late splits and a colony from an associate locally too - the weather is warming up again and the rain will have recharged the white clover !
July here we come
KR
Somerford
