What did you do in the Apiary today?

[elainemary]

Checked varroa drops 4 days after vaping hives & Nucs with Api-Bioxal. 7 hives with 0 drop, 3 hives with 1 mite, 1 with 3 mites and 1 with 5 mites. Guess shows how effective Apivar / Apitraz strips are after 10 weeks of treatment from end Aug. Slightly surprised at the very low drop non-the-less.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Unless there’s brood in there?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Finished mine yesterday - SWMBO preferred the black debris netting!

I would have ordered some decent bird netting (would have cost 20 odd quid tops) but SWMBO had some netting in her collection that was 'good enough' took me bloody ages

 

[user 6127]

I would have ordered some decent bird netting (would have cost 20 odd quid tops) but SWMBO had some netting in her collection that was 'good enough' took me bloody ages

Have been slowly doing mine over the last week.

Absolute pain having to move the Turkeys out the orchard, and under cover. We invested in some of the scaffolders netting (sons a scaffolder), as that can be repurposed for other things around the farm come spring.

Thankfully, farmed geese are exempt (with extra precautions). Otherwise we would've had a nightmare!

 

[Monbees]

Have been slowly doing mine over the last week.

Thankfully, farmed geese are exempt (with extra precautions). Otherwise we would've had a nightmare!

Really, are geese exempt? I have two!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Absolute pain having to move the Turkeys out the orchard,

They should have been in the coldstore by now maturing for Christmas

 

[user 6127]

Really, are geese exempt? I have two!

No. Those 2 will no be exempt. Note how I said 'Farmed geese'. I currently have 16 live geese. The exact wording on the Defra Biosecurity relaese is:

" Poultry keepers in England, Scotland and Wales will be required from Monday 14 December 2020, to keep chickens, hens, ducks and turkeys housed indoors where practicable, or keep them separate from wild birds. For farmed geese, gamebirds and other captive birds where housing is less practicable, keepers must take steps to keep them separate from wild birds."

 

[user 6127]

They should have been in the coldstore by now maturing for Christmas

Next years breeders. We do all our own matching, hatching and dispatching

 

[Monbees]

No. Those 2 will no be exempt. Note how I said 'Farmed geese'. I currently have 16 live geese. The exact wording on the Defra Biosecurity relaese is:

" Poultry keepers in England, Scotland and Wales will be required from Monday 14 December 2020, to keep chickens, hens, ducks and turkeys housed indoors where practicable, or keep them separate from wild birds. For farmed geese, gamebirds and other captive birds where housing is less practicable, keepers must take steps to keep them separate from wild birds."

So, to be classed as 'farmed' the birds have to be raised for the table, not for egg laying?
You mention having 16 live geese - I guess they won't be live for long?

 

[user 6127]

So, to be classed as 'farmed' the birds have to be raised for the table, not for egg laying?
You mention having 16 live geese - I guess they won't be live for long?

I hope they will be alive and heathy for a long time to come
As I mentioned above, we do our own matching, hatching and dispatching, and these are my breeding stock. We increase it each year. My profile pic is one of my Dewlap Toulouse geese. They are a big bird, and great as a guard goose, pet, or for the table. We also have rare breed Franconian, and Steinbacher geese (nb- If anyone has any Steinbacher geese, please get in touch)

 

[Somerford]

Please send it here . You've had enough now

With pleasure I would if I could . I keep hearing about the fires down under I hope the situation improves for you all soon

 

[Antipodes]

With pleasure I would if I could . I keep hearing about the fires down under I hope the situation improves for you all soon

Thanks
Fraser Island was on fire last week, but now, parts of Queensland are flooding badly. I heard this morning that somewhere there got 700+ mm (28 inches) of rain in a day or so. Dry as anything here in Tassie now and 31 forecast today.

 

[elainemary]

Unless there’s brood in there?

Yes agree, but think unlikely where we are, been so cold, wet and dark

 

[Swn58]

Went to check the farm bees on Friday, before the horrendous weekend weather struck. I took down fondant, in case they needed feeding. How wrong was I! They were behaving like it was a spring day. The hives were heavy and a check of a couple, that were not so active, showed that they had barely touched the super frames that I had left them. Unfortunately I am two hives down there, due to the sustained wasp attacks that I spoke of before. Hives always get attention from wasps, but I have never seen, what looked like, a full on assault by the stripey 's! Wasp traps all over for next year I think.

 

[masterBK]

Dry sunny 10 C today here in sunny Donny so this morning helped a friend treat 35 of his colonies (in commercial hives) with oxalic dribble and also heft to determine level of stores. Took all of 110 minutes start to finish. After lunch checked my 4 colonies (two double brood hives plus two 6 frame polynucs) at home for brood and having found no evidence of brood treated them with oxalic. If they have no brood then the other 28 colonies in the much colder outapiary located on a farm 4 miles away will probably not have any either so will treat them tomorrow morning as weather forecast good. Most of the colonies seen today still had plenty of stores and bees although a few had shrunk back to about 4 seams.

 

[Nannysbees]

Really surprised to see a lot of bees out today and bringing in some pollen, thought they'd be cwtched up in the warm!!!!

 

[Monbees]

No. Those 2 will no be exempt. Note how I said 'Farmed geese'. I currently have 16 live geese. The exact wording on the Defra Biosecurity relaese is:

" Poultry keepers in England, Scotland and Wales will be required from Monday 14 December 2020, to keep chickens, hens, ducks and turkeys housed indoors where practicable, or keep them separate from wild birds. For farmed geese, gamebirds and other captive birds where housing is less practicable, keepers must take steps to keep them separate from wild birds."

Does anyone know how long the last avian flu/poultry lockdown lasted?

 

[StephenT]

Does anyone know how long the last avian flu/poultry lockdown lasted?

5 months. Was it that long?

In 2016 a housing order was imposed by the English, Scottish and Welsh governments on 11 November (N. Ireland imposed one a little later), before there was a single case of infection in the UK.At the time, the industry supported such a move thinking that it would only be in place for 30 days, but it was rolled over time and again and was not lifted in England until 13 April.

https://www.farminguk.com/news/britain-s-free-range-hens-set-to-join-lockdown_57083.html

 

[Antipodes]

Got around 4 apiary sites yesterday. Bottler of a day but just a bit too hot. After months of work it was rather nice to see there is a flow on ....just wonderful to see. Wouldn't be half as good would it if it wasn't hard earned and a delightful butterscotch flavour!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

5 months. Was it that long?

In 2016 a housing order was imposed by the English, Scottish and Welsh governments on 11 November (N. Ireland imposed one a little later), before there was a single case of infection in the UK.At the time, the industry supported such a move thinking that it would only be in place for 30 days, but it was rolled over time and again and was not lifted in England until 13 April.

https://www.farminguk.com/news/britain-s-free-range-hens-set-to-join-lockdown_57083.html

It did drag on SWMBO didn't half whinge about it until I pointed out that it was she who wrote the contingency plans!!