When to call it a day on the heather?

preyingmantos · Sep 24, 2013

30 stripped today from wales

lucky to get 2 or 3 buckets.

mega strong colonies as well, in what looks like a good site.

Failed 3 years in a row, there wont be a 4th.

anyone wanna trade for 18 gallons of diesel and 50£ rent? thought not

Bee Bumble · Sep 24, 2013

preyingmantos said:
30 stripped today from wales

lucky to get 2 or 3 buckets.

mega strong colonies as well, in what looks like a good site.

Failed 3 years in a row, there wont be a 4th.

anyone wanna trade for 18 gallons of diesel and 50£ rent? thought not

Sod's law says next year will be a bumper crop.

stoneleighhouse · Sep 25, 2013

I thought I'd taken my hives to the heather too early, third week of July.
However the main flow occurred the first two weeks in August as the heather began to flower
The yield has been good with 2 supers per hive drawn from new foundation,one hive filled three supers, all my hives had 8 to 10 frames of brood,
by the last week in August nothing coming in , brought them back 9th September but on reflection could have been at least a week earlier with the same yield.
Its not one of the most spectacular moors but I now think it must be about timing and catching the heather just as it comes into flower, so placing the hives before the heather starts to show.
Every year I try to learn a little more( pun not intended), mostly by making mistakes, watching and listening to the bees, realising what brilliant clever little creatures they are, reading a lot, and trying not to enter into paralysis by analysis

preyingmantos · Sep 25, 2013

when i went up to derbyshire on the 10th only about 5-10% of the flowers were open?

Into the lions den · Sep 25, 2013

Several inquiries about outcomes so far, but we have only finished extracting one location, Dinnet Moor.

38 colonies in total (inc a few small ones) and site total 1438 kg, so ave 37.84Kg, or a tad over 83lb per colony. Next group look as good or even better and are a bigger site, but group 3 will be lucky to make 10Kg average. Projection overall running at about 49lb/colony. Thus above our long term average of 42.4lb, but not spectacularly so.

The first group were local bees in poly lang hives. Looking as if the polys may be close to double the average of the woodens this year, but they had other advantages this season that skew that from being a valid direct comparison.