Autumn bee keeping

Its rather depressing to think that the season is beginning to wind down.
To use a footballing cliche the season is a game of two halves. The first half is where the focus is on colony development and production of honey. I call this 'retail' honey as its the stuff I sell at markets and is the honey I'm not that interested in.
Honey extraction normally is done twice a year and once the second extraction has been done the second half of the season begins and is about concentrating on preparing the bees for the winter and helping them build up 'bee' honey to get them through the winter.

To flog the footballing cliche again, the first half of the season had two halves. Firstly it was very dry which prevented plants from developing nectar and it got to the stage where the county bee keeper association warned its members about possible starvation. [of the bees that is, not the members].
Then it tipped down preventing the bees from getting out of the hives and meant they consumed honey rather than built it up.
When I finally got round to doing the second extraction I started at Scald End. In both apiaries there were colonies who had a second super and I was confident they would be filled.
However,  I was disappointed. Twice.
Firstly a lot of the supers weren't full and for those with second supers most of them were virtually untouched.
Secondly, the honey that was there had crystallised in the frames.
I wasn't too bothered about the lack of 'retail' honey but the thought of dealing with the crystallised honey wasn't a good one.
Extracting crystallised honey is a huge PITA and you have to cut the comb out of the frames, warm it until it melts, wait for it to cool, and then take the solid wax off to get to the honey which will probably need filtering again.
Some of the supers weren't worth bothering with so I let the bees keep the honey they made by putting them above the crown board as I showed in the clearing the frames blog.

I knew there was potentially a lot more at Ravensden and I dreaded finding it too had crystallised.
Fortunately it was runny although there was not as much as I expected, Saying that The Beast did it again, producing two supers stuffed with honey.

Since the first extraction, I played around with some brackets to attach the extractor to the leg weights more securely and these worked well and I could leave it to happily whirr away and not worry about coming back and finding it half way down the garden.

Both readers of this blog will know of my waning interest in markets and that I now only do one regular monthly market [Bromham Mill], one quarterly market [Potton] and a few one offs.
After I ran out of honey last year I thought I ought to see how much honey needed to be produced to support these markets and if necessary cut back some more.
In the past I never bothered weighing the honey I extracted [most of it was given away] but this year I did and the second extraction alone produced enough honey to last a full year.
Does this mean I will do more markets?
No.

The second half of the season is about treatment and readying the bees for the winter.
The next job I will start next week is the autumn treatment for varroa. There is something on the web site about varroa here
Varroa can only be managed but not eradicated and bee keepers are encouraged to adopt an 'Integrated Pest Management' system. This basically means don't rely on one thing all the time, mix it up.
Although treatments for varroa can be made at any time if necessary, normally there is an autumn treatment backed by by something in winter.
What I will do this year is treat the bees in each apiary with different medication and then swap it around next year.
Later in the year around Christmas time I will do an oxalic acid treatment.

Beeks, usually new ones, are often criticised for adding to the problems bees face by not applying treatments properly. A standard treatment called Apiguard has to be applied when the weather is quite warm so it evaporates properly and carried around the hive. If its added when its cool its effectiveness and therefore the varroa mites exposure to the treatment is reduced and helps them build up a resistance to the Apiguard. Other treatments can also be left on too long so the mites acclimatise to a weaker dosage.

Also, I now will be monitoring the food stores in the hive and if necessary help them build up 'bee' honey.
Its normal for the bees to have an Autumn feed backed by by a Winter feed if necessary. The Autumn feed is a liquid feed of syrup. You can buy whats called Ambrosia which is an inverted sugar mix and closer to what the bees need. The Association sells this more cheaply than can be bought on the internet and I'm waiting to see what it costs.
Its recommended you should monitor the weight of a hive to see to what extent its building up its stores, Last year I bought an electronic weighing device [yes. its a BoyToy!] that makes it easy.
A video about it is here.

Both jobs are equally important. If the varroa treatments are effective the bees are healthy and better able to survive the winter but could starve if their food runs out. Equally plenty of food stores might not be much use to an unhealthy and weak colony.