Off to the Heather

[Into the lions den]

Lots of pollen in my hives compared to last inspection in Hereford too . You must be fed up of moving all your hives by now.

The heather shift is alwas a fairly exciting time of the year and although we all get exhausted doing it...........we have had 17 successive 4AM starts so far and now all the Scottish bees are on the moors. (bar one group that are stuck in a site that needs a swamp buggy to reach..thanks to the farmer placing a HUGE midden of chicken manure in the bottom corner of the field, which we have to get round to reach the bees, and it blocked off the natural water drainage, and now we have a near bottomless 70 yard stinking black liquor swamp to cross..............lovely.)

The 200 on the road tonight are from Hereford............the rest go tomorrow.......so that will be us finished until we can extricate the swamp bound ones.

I always fund a major party for the staff and their partners at the end of shifting. Its such a big job and they are a brilliant bunch. To move 2700 to the heather in just over two weeks, all manually loaded up onto the backs of unimogs is a massive task and they deserve thanks above and beyond their wages. Saturday night is the night................there will be some sorry states on Sunday!

 

[protheroe]

Mine to, filled a super in a week could not believe it ! I think it must bee the clover as the farmers did not cut the fields until this week, also the late flowering blackberry and no white bees yet so must be on something tasty I cant find but they are bringing in lots of lime green pollen so must be a good year for the lime trees although I cant find them either !! but they are flying up the mountain so there they must be, happy days at last

the balsam is definitely out down the canal and river,my hives in glais are bringing it in,plenty of ghostly looking bees.good flow on ,most of my hives have filled a super and one of them in rhyd y fro has filled two since the weather got better.

 

[Tdf]

how much honey do you usually get from the heather?

 

[Into the lions den]

how much honey do you usually get from the heather?

Not sure who you are asking or if it is a general question, but our long term average, counting ALL hives migrated, the stormers and the dinks alike, is just a shade over 20Kg/44lb. Everything goes to the heather, no non producers thus excluded from calcs (which gives a false impression of crop anyway if you exclude colonies on which you have had work to do).

Since starting the poly unit, those colonies have averaged about 26Kg/57lb. (which is not the whole picture, as we also get more colony number increase in those)

NOT expecting that this year due to colony condition, weather cycles, and lateness of the heather.

 

[AndyTh]

Thank you all for your feedback. I'm now going to move my bees tomorrow morning, and the site does have some willowherb and clover so there should be some forage to tide them over before the ling blooms. I'll do an update tomorrow to report observations "on the hill". Last year I did get 60lbs heather/mixed honey from 6 hives, but 4 were swarms/nucs replacing bad winter losses. But the main advantage has been that all 6 colonies came back from the heather strong and they wintered really well with no losses. Hoping for a repeat this year..

 

[REDWOOD]

after adding supers today took a look at the ling further up the mountain and noticed the green foliage on the ling is looking good with it's little flower buds just showing.

 

[Into the lions den]

Not long back in after a late load up to the moors. Checked one site on the way back, which we looked at on Saturday, at which time they had nothing. The bell flow has started. Some colonies still have very little but the better ones have a lot of fresh nectar in them tonight, and have put in up to half a box (lang deep). So its starting, just in time for the weather to go base over apex again.................the 10 day forecast has the semi permanent low pressure area re-establishing itself over the north of the UK for August...............

 

[REDWOOD]

same in Wales, light showers Sunday and Monday as long as it's not to heavy

 

[AndyTh]

Moved bees to Borenge/Blaenavon area yesterday - little sign of bell heather up there but one or two (!) ling plants in full bloom, the rest with purple buds probably a week from flowering. Fingers crossed for sufficiently decent weather during August though I note Lions Den has posted above that gloom will descend from the north for the month. We'll just have to see if S Wales avoids the worst..

 

[Into the lions den]

Moved bees to Borenge/Blaenavon area yesterday - little sign of bell heather up there but one or two (!) ling plants in full bloom, the rest with purple buds probably a week from flowering. Fingers crossed for sufficiently decent weather during August though I note Lions Den has posted above that gloom will descend from the north for the month. We'll just have to see if S Wales avoids the worst..

Put four loads into Rothiemurchus near Aviemore yesterday evening................and like you mention......first few clumps of ling with a few flowers open, but by 'few' I mean I saw maybe three such clumps in a couple of miles. Very sheltered area, heather at all stages of development, will have flower all the way to September.

My son was on one of the trucks and took some fabulous pictures as we dropped the hives off near to sunset time. Will post a few in the albums section in the next day or two.

 

[REDWOOD]

Put the wet supers back on today so gave a little check on the mountain to see whats happening and found an area of a few acres of heath looking good and the ling flowers are just starting to open, sorry about the quality of photos as I only had my phone

 

[Norton]

Nice photos even if with a phone.

 

[Rob55]

Myself and a mate who just got bees this summer for the first time are going to try our hand at the heather, he has some hill ground on the mountains above Limavady, I was up at the weekend and there was just some purple starting to show on the heather, I'm no expert but I assume bell heather, our weather has been absolutely dreadful and looks set to get no better but we are going to put our hives up anyway to see what happens in a good sheltered spot!

 

[Poly Hive]

For shelter look for bracken....

PH

 

[Rob55]

For shelter look for bracken....

PH

Or his sister's house, which is built right on the edge of it all

 

[Poly Hive]

The house signifies nothing, just an available plot, bracken has significance.

Top tip.

PH

 

[mbc]

The house signifies nothing, just an available plot, bracken has significance.

Top tip.

PH

I think its fair to say most people would take more care placing houses in sheltered spots than they would hives

 

[jackbee]

The house signifies nothing, just an available plot, bracken has significance.

Top tip.

PH

for completeness - what's the significance?

 

[mbc]

for completeness - what's the significance?

Bracken only likes to grow near mains gas, electricity and sewerage

 

[susbees]

For shelter look for bracken....

PH

....not East of here: they're spraying this week. "Bee friendly"? Hmm...