Autumn Varroa treatment

There is something on the web site here about the varroa mite, and its not nice reading.
Varroa is a fact of life and like Jeremy Clarkson its not funny, unfortunately cannot be got rid of and so has to be tolerated.
Although it cannot be erased a bee keeper should take steps to try and keep the mite to a 'tolerable' level.
Normally this is done in the Autumn once the honey has been taken off as some treatments can taint the honey.

Its generally thought to be good practice to rotate treatments to prevent bees building up a resistance to a particular treatment and this year I have treated the Scald End bees with Apiguard and the Ravensden bees with Apivar.
I will reverse this next year.

Someone has done the Stevington bees for me but I don't know what they used.
Click the button to see the video

In December the next treatment will be done with oxalic acid.

The Project has started

Its going to be a little while before the bees arrive next year at Strawberry Grove
but I wanted to make a 'statement of intent' so thought I could sort out the hives in advance of them arriving next April.

Its generally accepted its best to have at least two hives in an apiary. This gives you a degree of safety so that if one colony is struggling its possible to use material from the other hive to help it out.
Therefore we have agreed that we will aim to start with two hives.
Initially we discussed getting swarms but this isn't a reliable source - this year I had very few calls about collecting swarms.  Also, swarms normally don't produce any honey in their first year.

We aren't trying to compete with Rouse, but it would be nice to be able produce some honey next year for Sam's and Fliss' customers.
So, the plan is to move one of my colonies from Ravensden/Scald End and also to have what is known as an over wintered nuc.
This is a small colony created this year and gets through the winter and will produce honey next year. I have one on order.
Hopefully next year SG's customers will see something like this,

I put together a hive from bits I already had and made a floor and roof. This will house the nuc that has half the normal number of frames a full size hive has, but it will expand as the colony grows.
Initially the nuc is put on top of the full hive to gives the bees some time to sort themselves out and then the frames are transferred from the nuc into the full hive.

Lifting heavy brood boxes/supers can be hard work so I usually put a hive on a table made from a pallet with  legs made from a fence post.. This raises the hive to a more manageable level.
Luckily I have an arrangement with a company in Bedford who let me have as many pallets as I want and two hive tables were made.

Traditionally bee hives are dull - either green or brown.
I have seen photos of hives in South America and some Mediterranean countries that are brightly coloured so I have painted parts of my hives different colours and the Strawberry Grove hive is also multicoloured.


We took the hives and tables to SG today and set it up.
There is a bit of gardening to do around the tables but I will do this another time. Its just an excuse to pay another visit.

At Strawberry Grove you haven't really arrived until you have your own sign.
The goats have one so do the chickens and turkeys.
Even the worms in the wormery have their own sign.

And so do the bees.

Fliss and Sam are helped by local volunteers and it would be nice if we had some helpers for the bees. I can provide suits and gloves and training in dealing with the bees.
If anyone is interested they can contact Fliss or myself.

Stevington Manor

A few weeks ago the Beds Beekeepers Association sent an email to its members asking if anyone was willing to look after some bees at Stevington Manor.
I knew the person whose bees they were and sadly he has had to give up bee keeping. I had looked after the bees when he was on holiday.
I also had met the owners of the Manor and I decided to give it a go.

One of the reasons for volunteering is that the gardens at The Manor are stunningly beautiful.
Have a look at their web site here and you will see what I mean. If I was a bee I would want to live nearby.
Another  reason is that a year or so ago after I collected a swarm from a house near the Manor, Kathy and her husband with some friends shared homemade cakes and tea in the garden which was lovely.
You can't have too much home made cake and tea.

There have been three colonies at the Manor but one of them died off and the hive became infested with wax moth. I will do a blog about cleaning up the hive later.

The other two hives looked very healthy and were taking in large amounts of yellow pollen.

I went back a few days ago and took the cleaned up wax moth hive back and set it up for next year.
I hope to populate it next year with either a swarm or by splitting one of the two existing hives..

The bees are in a paddock next to the Manor gardens and  a bit of gardening needed to be done to cut back the bushes behind the hives and to cut the grass in front of them.
I started the autumn feed by giving them two pints of syrup each [each hive, not each bee].

It's time to stop

When we started bee keeping we only intended having a couple of hives at the end of our garden and the honey the bees produced was given away.
However as my family well know I have an obsessive streak and can become over involved in things and then move on to something else - wind surfing, bird watching, crashing model aeroplanes, fishing, motor bikes, shooting, dinghy sailing, to name but a few.

A few years ago a series of random unplanned events, coupled with my obsessive streak, meant I found my life being taken over by bees.
I became involved with Farmer's markets, started giving talks on bees, collecting swarms and all the while the number of hives I had increased as did the time I spent on looking after them. Bee keeping is hard work and I'm old.

I outgrew Ravensden and took on Scald End and recently things have escalated further.
I am helping someone who is starting up a honey production business and am mentoring someone who is taking up bee keeping.
I also am setting up an apiary at Strawberry Grove in Cambridge about which I have done a blog and have just agreed to look after bees at Stevington Manor. [more of which later].

Over the last few years as the bee obsession grew, from time to time Sue would say to me 'Is that enough now?' 'Not sure' I would reply and we both knew that meant 'No'.
However after the Stevington thing was confirmed, I officially announced that this was it. No more bees, I have enough. N more bee related projects.Enough. It must stop.
Possibly

September roundup

The season continues to wind down.
The main task for August has been treating the colonies for varroa.
I have used one type of treatment at Ravensden and something different at Scald End and I will publish a blog about this

At Scald End and Ravensden I am being helped by Duncan who contacted me about wanting to start bee keeping and the varroa treatment was an introduction to him of how contrary bees can be.
We had treated some bees at Ravensden without incident and the bees were very calm. When we did the same thing at Scald End it was overcast and thundery, things bees don't like, and the first hive we tried to do made it abundantly clear they would rather we went away. Duncan hadn't seen bees like this before so we went away as requested.
Two days later I went back, the bees took no interest in me and I did the 7 remaining hives in about 20 minutes. I didn't suite up except for my silly veil and didn't bother with gloves.

September time will be the time for feeding the bees in readiness for Winter. The various bits of kit we need are in place and we will start next week.

Stevington Manor

My seemingly unstoppable take over of the UK bee population continues a pace.
I have agreed to look after some hives at Stevington Manor and will do a blog about this next week.

Strawberry Grove Growers

Since my blog I have been working on one of the hives that will at the Grove.
Bee hives are normally boring looking things but I thought I would make this one  bit more colourful.

I will take it to the Grove in a couple of weeks,