What did you do in the Apiary today?

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Suspect something along these lines:
http://beespoke.info/2014/10/07/how-to-take-a-crop-of-ivy-honey/

feed your bees 5 litres or more of Ambrosia or syrup.....................
guess what they'll be packing into the supers then?

 

[pargyle]

Snorkels and flippers more like, as today the garden flooded and house partially flooded. Enough water to pick up six foot timber sleepers and carry them away. I don’t need to heft the hives as the water flowing around and under them didn’t move them an inch.
We were much better off than some whose entire downstairs flooded. Two garages, utility and porch inundated though.

Not so good then .... the rain and wind in the Costa del Fareham was pretty hairy ... tree branches and trees down all over the place and the garden is like a quagmire ... fortunately no chance of flooding where we are - worst nightmare !

 

[Angry_Mob]

How will you extract it?

I was going to stick it in the warming cabinet and see what it does; if I'm beat I'll get the heather press out and crush it. Already cleaned it though...

 

[The Poot]

Poot. That’s awful. Where do you live?
Hope it doesn’t get worse.
It’s lashing down here but at least we are a little way up the side of a valley.

I’m down in the bottom of a vale - on clay, so lots of run off when it rains hard. We had two hours of “stair rod“ rain this morning. The (usually) minor stream that is our boundary turned into an absolute raging monster today. I live in West Dorset.

 

[pargyle]

I was going to stick it in the warming cabinet and see what it does; if I'm beat I'll get the heather press out and crush it. Already cleaned it though...

You will find that it is very granular, if it's set you have had it .... it sets in the comb faster than rape ... if it's set just resign yourself to feeding it back to the bees - you will never press it out.

 

[mbc]

feed your bees 5 litres or more of Ambrosia or syrup.....................
guess what they'll be packing into the supers then?

Absolutely.
I keep thinking about the much vaunted Danish system where many beekeepers shook swarm onto all fresh foundation in the autumn and feed syrup like stingo until everything's nice and heavy.
All for bee health apparently.
They feed ridiculous volumes of syrup then boast of average honey crops way in excess of what we can expect in most areas of Britain.
Without a shadow of a doubt some of that syrup will end up in the supers the following year, it's how bees work.

 

[Brenda]

Snorkels and flippers more like, as today the garden flooded and house partially flooded. Enough water to pick up six foot timber sleepers and carry them away. I don’t need to heft the hives as the water flowing around and under them didn’t move them an inch.
We were much better off than some whose entire downstairs flooded. Two garages, utility and porch inundated though.

 

[Markthebuilder]

Insulated a wooden hive and a poly nuc with the left over bits…. Can’t help wondering if we assume that plenty of keepers have been successfully with plain wooden boxes for years then the enthusiasm for insulating hives is an undercover sales pitch by poly hive manufacturers?

 

[nantmoel]

Not so much the Apiary but the honey room! My Heather labels arrived over the weekend so I've been busy applying them to my jars of heather honey. Just hope it sells now.

 

[Nannysbees]

Not so much the Apiary but the honey room! My Heather labels arrived over the weekend so I've been busy applying them to my jars of heather honey. Just hope it sells now.

View attachment 28955

Very smart, how many jars of honey did the bees produce?

 

[lindsay s]

They feed ridiculous volumes of syrup then boast of average honey crops way in excess of what we can expect in most areas of Britain.
Without a shadow of a doubt some of that syrup will end up in the supers the following year, it's how bees work.

It might be folklore but I’m lead to believe that the sugar rations given to beekeepers in the Second World War were dyed and the subsequent syrup fed to the bees showed up all over the hives. Nowadays I’m careful and I don’t feed too much syrup in the Springtime and it’s only where needed.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It might be folklore but I’m lead to believe that the sugar rations given to beekeepers in the Second World War were dyed

Maybe in some areas - not around here, which suited my grandfather fine as the heather honey was left on the hives for winter stores and my grandparents had a nice little sideline selling pears bottled in syrup.

 

[Swn58]

Not so much apiary work. Yesterday I finished bottling that last honey. I produced 115 10 oz jars. Some have been labelled, but I'm holding off labelling half of it until I know what I'm doing with them. The farm shop do not buy in large amounts as they used too, due to 'storage problems.' Hilarious, as it leaves my place looking like a honey-warehouse! I am looking to expand my customer base next season.
The rest of the week will involve cleaning and clearing away the extraction equipment and preparing to sort out wax. My new extraction process has led to less destruction of comb on frames which has good and bad points. Less wax to render, but a chance to start creating some purer, cleaner wax from the very beginning. This year I started to grade wax for its purity, pre rendering. Ultimately, wax is far more valuable than honey, so I may put more effort into producing that in the future.

 

[nantmoel]

Very smart, how many jars of honey did the bees produce?

Heather honey is a bonus crop for me, there's heather on the mountain behind me. I managed to press 50lb of it, I sold it all in one hour. Next year I'll be moving them to a more prolific area.

 

[Amari]

Weighed my hives in the main apiary:
Single BB poly - 29kg
Single cedar BB with poly lid - 27 kg (empty weight 19 kg?)
Cedar BBs and shallows with poly lids - 30,29,33,33,33,29,29 kg (empty weight 24kg?)

The empty weights, ie hive and frames without bees or stores, I've previously gleaned from elsewhere on the forum. If they're true then my BBs + shallows are light on stores, despite all colonies receiving at least 12 kg of invert syrup in mid September.

Then I walked a two-mile circular route looking for autumn-sown OSR. Much less than in previous years, the nearest is a 20acre field 1 km distant.

It was a dank misty day, T 9C, so I was heartened when a skylark rose and began to sing.....

 

[North End Bees]

If they're true then my BBs + shallows are light on stores, despite all colonies receiving at least 12 kg of invert syrup in mid September.

I had exactly the same at my out apiary this year. Fed in September and they just raced through it, which I've not had happen before. They've now got fondant on.

I guess probably autumn being much warmer than usual, so bees active longer, and lack of ivy at that site.

 

[Moobee]

Refreshed my wasp/hornet traps and took the dog round the local fields. Encouragingly, it looks like they've planted phacelia as green manure.

 

[Jon.21]

Noticed there’s still drones coming and going. Got them coming and going on both of my hives. Is it normal to have drones this time of year?
View attachment C7018C67-D63A-45E2-921C-E64B04D09EBB.MOV

 

[Jon.21]

Checked on the bees through my see through crown board and noticed this fella under the roof Found earwigs most of the time but never one of these I assume it’s a cricket

 

[Curly green finger's]

Plans for tomorrow to remove apivar and OA strips from 37 colonys.
Also weighing all colonys and topping up fondant.
On some of the colonys that where fed syrup first I've used a QX above frames then fondant parchment paper under and above the fondant and a reversible CB insulation etc.