OursonAnglaise
New Bee
- Joined
- May 15, 2015
- Messages
- 91
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Haute Garonne, France
- Hive Type
- Langstroth
- Number of Hives
- 2
I hope my feelings of pride will not come before a fall!
I am just coming to the end of my first full year of beekeeping. Everything so far has gone well- the bees have behaved themselved, despite my occasional worries, and I have not encountered any major problems. As I am in the south of France & therefore in a different situation in terms of temperatures and weather I have gone with my gut feeling of what I should do next and this, so far, has worked out.
At the end of March (Easter weekend), following a week of very warm dry weather I did my first inpection (not a full one, as I was not particularly well), but I lifted off the cover board to take a look and my Langstroth brood boxwas bursting with bees. I therefore took the decision to give them some more space and 'something to do'. I added super full of undrawn frames.
The following weekend was wet, so it was two weeks before I was able to take another look and do my first full inspection. In that time all the foundation had been drawn on the frames in the super. I had a cursory look at the contents and saw what I thought looked like nectar in some and some darker substances in other cells. Anyway, I then checked the main brood box, found my queen, with BIAS and stores and figured that I would seperate the brood box and the super with the queen excluder.
From this weeks inspection it turns out my queen had been a very busy lady in those two weeks and that super was completely full with capped brood: some drone but mostly worker.
I have therefore removed the QE again and reverted to brood and a half. The boxes were again both full of bees. I have added another super this week on top of the queen excluder this time. This super contains frames of pre drawn foundation, so I am hoping that as the cherry, apple, & pear trees are all out, and my 'grass' is full of bugle (a purple/blue spiked flower) , and I can see that my elderflower tree is already started to bud, that I may get the start of some stores!
It has been so exciting to come through the winter and see the hive so active. I have become an avid watcher of plants and flowers and although I am no photographer have started to take some pictures to add to my records so that I can review from year to year how the plants enjoyed by my bees and how the hive fares.
I know this will sound a bit hippy dippy, but I do feel much more in tune with nature, and am more aware of my surroundings and other insects, just as a result of keeping bees. In fact, on the bugle alone, I found a swallowtail butterfly, carpenter bees, tree bees & bumble bees. As of 1 year ago I wouldn't have been able to identify a tree bee!
I am just coming to the end of my first full year of beekeeping. Everything so far has gone well- the bees have behaved themselved, despite my occasional worries, and I have not encountered any major problems. As I am in the south of France & therefore in a different situation in terms of temperatures and weather I have gone with my gut feeling of what I should do next and this, so far, has worked out.
At the end of March (Easter weekend), following a week of very warm dry weather I did my first inpection (not a full one, as I was not particularly well), but I lifted off the cover board to take a look and my Langstroth brood boxwas bursting with bees. I therefore took the decision to give them some more space and 'something to do'. I added super full of undrawn frames.
The following weekend was wet, so it was two weeks before I was able to take another look and do my first full inspection. In that time all the foundation had been drawn on the frames in the super. I had a cursory look at the contents and saw what I thought looked like nectar in some and some darker substances in other cells. Anyway, I then checked the main brood box, found my queen, with BIAS and stores and figured that I would seperate the brood box and the super with the queen excluder.
From this weeks inspection it turns out my queen had been a very busy lady in those two weeks and that super was completely full with capped brood: some drone but mostly worker.
I have therefore removed the QE again and reverted to brood and a half. The boxes were again both full of bees. I have added another super this week on top of the queen excluder this time. This super contains frames of pre drawn foundation, so I am hoping that as the cherry, apple, & pear trees are all out, and my 'grass' is full of bugle (a purple/blue spiked flower) , and I can see that my elderflower tree is already started to bud, that I may get the start of some stores!
It has been so exciting to come through the winter and see the hive so active. I have become an avid watcher of plants and flowers and although I am no photographer have started to take some pictures to add to my records so that I can review from year to year how the plants enjoyed by my bees and how the hive fares.
I know this will sound a bit hippy dippy, but I do feel much more in tune with nature, and am more aware of my surroundings and other insects, just as a result of keeping bees. In fact, on the bugle alone, I found a swallowtail butterfly, carpenter bees, tree bees & bumble bees. As of 1 year ago I wouldn't have been able to identify a tree bee!
