July News

Things still aren't great

After the cold wet weather has come a period of hot dry weather. The ground is hard with no moisture in it reducing plants ability to produce nectar for the bees.
For the bees 'its just one dam thing after another'.
For the first time ever I haven't taken any honey in May but perhaps the warmer weather, and hopefully some rain, will improve things.

Swarms

The swarm collection thing I mentioned in the previous blog hasn't produced nearly as much work as I thought. I have been told from May onwards, the phone won't stop ringing but so far I have only been contacted 9 times.
 - 1 swarm disappeared before I got there.
 - 2 were bumblebees
 - 1 was wasps
 - 1 might have been bees but he didn't get back to me.
 - 1 swarm absconded the day after I collected it.
 - 2 were honey bee swarms
 - 1 couldn't be dealt with.
I had put up 4 bait hives to hopefully attract a swarm and one has worked and will be the subject of a further blog.

Grass is a pain in the ......apiary

Ravensden is an enclosed copse so apart from pruning a few branches every couple of years to keep the bees' vertical exit clear, there isn't much maintenance to do.
Scald End is a different matter and as its an un-managed field the grass can be, as Rodgers and Hammerstein would say, 'as high as an elephants eye', and hives can dissappear into the vegetation.

Last year I used a petrol strimmer to cut the grass.The bees in the hive nearest me decided to take great exception to the noise and decided to make their view known in the most unambiguous way possible.
As did every hive whose peace and quiet I disturbed.
I soon decided I wasn't particularly enjoying having hundreds of bees attacking me so gave up.

This year I decided to take a less confrontational approach and purchased a hand scythe - there wasn't enough space between the hives to use a full length one.

I didn't have a good start as I whacked one of the legs of a hive stand to provoke a mass evacuation to see what was going on.
With the other hives there were a few bees checking me out but nothing too bad provided I left a hive alone if they got too interested and did another one.
However, it was hard work.

Before

After

Nuc station
To deal with any swarms I get, I thought I would set up an area in Scald End to house them while I decide what to do with them.
This is about 50 yards further down the field.

Before

After