No Honey in the brood box

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Percymerlin

New Bee
Joined
Oct 20, 2012
Messages
16
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Location
Langstone, Hampshire
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
2 hives and proud of them
Ok I live in the sunny South of England by the coast and my wife and I are in our first year of bee keeping, one National hive.:nature-smiley-016::hurray:

In July the bees moved all their capped honey and nectar that was in the brood box to the super. :spy:The super was filled and we then added a second super, which is now about ¾ full.

We have extracted 6 frames of honey from the full super putting it back, including the wet frames for the bees for winter feed. Sorry just could not resist taking some honey.:piggy:

In the brood box we have 5 frames of BIAS & eggs plus Drone cells and 3 frames of pollen, just no honey stores. We have moved over from the peak of 8 frames of brood earlier in the year so things are changing.

The BB** mag is talking about closing up for the winter, treating for Varroa etc, here our bees are still working their socks off with pollen and nectar and it is still going in the supers.:confused:

The question is, do we just still leave as it for a few more weeks/months and what if anything should be done to ensure the bees have the stores they need in the brood box rather than leaving the super on the hive through the winter months.
 
You need to be thinking of treating for Varroa before it gets too cold.
If you are going to use a thymol based treatment such as Apiguard then that treatment lasts four weeks and supers have to be off or they will forever be tainted. If your plan is this way then take the supers off and store them somewhere cool. Take off what honey you can (capped) then you can give the bees their honey back in four weeks. Bees are supposed to "rob out" supers put above a crown board with a small hole in it ...thus taking it down into the brood box where it is needed for winter. This doesn't always work and I have found that my bees shift stores at this time of year if the super goes under the brood box. You can leave it there over winter and it will be empty come first inspection.

You say there are no stores. Bees will take feed while being treated but often reluctantly so you could give them what they will take in three or four days then treat.

OR
leave the supers on and use MAQS.
This is new and plenty of us are trying it.

Whatever you do. Make sure you don't steal their pollen. They need it to rear those winter bees.
 
Thanks EricA

We have got the Apiguard ready to go. We had read about the MAQS but as it was new and we knew so little, decide to go with the well known Apiguard.

Thanks for the advice on the supers that all makes sense so we will try above the Crown board first followed by putting the super below the BB if the first approach fails.
 
The BB** mag is talking about closing up for the winter, treating for Varroa etc, here our bees are still working their socks off with pollen and nectar and it is still going in the supers.:confused:

The question is, do we just still leave as it for a few more weeks/months and what if anything should be done to ensure the bees have the stores they need in the brood box rather than leaving the super on the hive through the winter months.

Your bees are likely to be active for longer than those further north and may be working heather/ling which isn't available in all parts of the country.

The magazine has decided to offer advice about winter preparations, it would also be criticised if the advice was too late in the year for some beekeepers.

A fair few people in this (my) area are using MAQS or Apivar strips. The latter can be used later than thymol treatments because it doesn't need to evaporate, so can be used after harvesting the ling honey.
 
the bees may well be bringing in nectar but from end august on it is likely to be ivy honey - an acquired ("medicinal") taste.
better to take what you can and get on with treating. anything the bees collect now is less sugar feed needed in october.
 
Thanks Beejoyfull,

You are right the magazine has to cater for the Beeks in the north and I should have to make adjustments for being so far south.

We are on the Eastern edge of Cowplain, so backing on to woodlands and common land Not that you would know it from driving around our housing estate.

The bees are coming in with lots of either orange almost red and bright yellow pollen.


We are watching out for the Ivy flowers as we walk about and it does not appear to be out yet around here.

I take your point drstitson about the Ivy honey, I would rather the bees ate it than me.

Currently the bees are behaving like 'black cloud' with their comings and goings about mid afternoon.

Just to complicate things we will be moving house (if the solicitors work it out) in two weeks time closer to the sea. :driving: so that appears to be a natural time to start applying the strips at that point.

It feels a bit like kill or cure with so many things going on for them :willy_nilly:
 
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