Good evening my one reader. I hope this fine Sunday evening in early May finds you well ?
A weekend of beekeeping again in many guises..
Friday - set up a trap out at the hotel where I have some colonies, checked all mine and it didn't come from my hives - so charged a nuc with 1 frame of multi-aged brood and threw in some young bees from a couple of supers.
Meanwhile the on-site handy man was busy fixing a platform to a small ladder to which I strapped the poly nuc and before long the bees were fanning excitedly - hopefully I'll get many of the bees in the wall, maybe even the queen will vacate too but I'm not counting my eggs....they only arrived Thursday evening so you never know.
Saturday - Meon Valley Bee Auction. About as far as I'd want to travel in the landy and trailer for an auction and like last year I could've done without the trailer - but sods law if I didn't take it I'd need it !
Came away with a couple of nucs to repair (£12) and a pair of wheel ramps (as you do) for £3. A pair of honey creamers for £30 one manual and one for a drill, and a heather honey press which set me back £90 but I plan to use it for apples and pears too. Happy days.
Some of the prices being achieved for hives was staggering - £50 for complete Langstroth hives, and from £52 to £95 for complete National hives as well as £200 for Thomas Extractine extractors...good news as I have one I have acquired I want to go to a new home.
Bees on combs of 6F up to 8F went for between £140 to £175 which compared with previous season's nuc prices is cheap for a full colony.
Also made some new Bee Farmer contacts there - Jez from Sussex and John (of Sinah Common Honey) too. Made plans to do a bulk deal on inverted syrup later in the year.
And on to Sunday - glorious day at the new Paddock. Lots of bees flying around (none of them mine) sniffing around a few old brood boxes that had some over wintered fermented combs in I needed to melt down.
To make things safer I moved all the boxes away from the Shed and behind the caravan so my boys could happily play football.
Just after lunch something made me stop on the veg path and , well, blow me there was a swarm moving down the hedgerow toward the boxes. The activity I saw earlier must've been scout bees....
Within an hour they had settled and all run into the box - which as they landed I suited up and swapped it for something better with drawn frames and foundation and popped a roof on the top.
I'll have to move them away in due course as they aren't where I'd planned to have bees on site.
Next week will be busy - am taking delivery of 10 packages - a first for me and 5 queens for some splits I'm planning.
Onwards and Upwards !
KR
Somerford
A weekend of beekeeping again in many guises..
Friday - set up a trap out at the hotel where I have some colonies, checked all mine and it didn't come from my hives - so charged a nuc with 1 frame of multi-aged brood and threw in some young bees from a couple of supers.
Meanwhile the on-site handy man was busy fixing a platform to a small ladder to which I strapped the poly nuc and before long the bees were fanning excitedly - hopefully I'll get many of the bees in the wall, maybe even the queen will vacate too but I'm not counting my eggs....they only arrived Thursday evening so you never know.
Saturday - Meon Valley Bee Auction. About as far as I'd want to travel in the landy and trailer for an auction and like last year I could've done without the trailer - but sods law if I didn't take it I'd need it !
Came away with a couple of nucs to repair (£12) and a pair of wheel ramps (as you do) for £3. A pair of honey creamers for £30 one manual and one for a drill, and a heather honey press which set me back £90 but I plan to use it for apples and pears too. Happy days.
Some of the prices being achieved for hives was staggering - £50 for complete Langstroth hives, and from £52 to £95 for complete National hives as well as £200 for Thomas Extractine extractors...good news as I have one I have acquired I want to go to a new home.
Bees on combs of 6F up to 8F went for between £140 to £175 which compared with previous season's nuc prices is cheap for a full colony.
Also made some new Bee Farmer contacts there - Jez from Sussex and John (of Sinah Common Honey) too. Made plans to do a bulk deal on inverted syrup later in the year.
And on to Sunday - glorious day at the new Paddock. Lots of bees flying around (none of them mine) sniffing around a few old brood boxes that had some over wintered fermented combs in I needed to melt down.
To make things safer I moved all the boxes away from the Shed and behind the caravan so my boys could happily play football.
Just after lunch something made me stop on the veg path and , well, blow me there was a swarm moving down the hedgerow toward the boxes. The activity I saw earlier must've been scout bees....
Within an hour they had settled and all run into the box - which as they landed I suited up and swapped it for something better with drawn frames and foundation and popped a roof on the top.
I'll have to move them away in due course as they aren't where I'd planned to have bees on site.
Next week will be busy - am taking delivery of 10 packages - a first for me and 5 queens for some splits I'm planning.
Onwards and Upwards !
KR
Somerford
