January Update

It's the New Year, the Shortest Day has passed and very gradually we move towards Spring. Hurray!!

So what's been going on?
Not a lot really.
The winter wraps are on and the winter feed has started.
The Ravensden and Stevington bees all finished off the fondant I put on a couple of weeks ago whereas only half the Scald End bees did. I've bought 2 12½ kg blocks to get them through the winter.
The recent mild weather isn't good for the bees as its just warm enough for them to fly and burn up energy and stores but there's nothing for them to replace it.


Looking at my winter list of Things To Do, its still as depressingly long as when I set it up.
I have allowed myself to spend far too much time faffing around with the Warre Hive and I've only managed to build one nuc for the summer swarms.

However in my defence I have yet to set up central heating in my shed and its cold in there.

Woodpeckers

Every year the Association secretary issues a note reminding members to take steps to prevent woodpecker damage.
I can remember remarking to a neighbour that I hadn't seen any woodpeckers this year so I was a bit surprised to see this when I went to Ravensden  to do the wraps and feed.

From the white dust around the hole it looks like it had a go at where I have repaired a previous hole with filler.
For the time being I have put a square of wood over it but underneath is a bit of mesh which will give the woodpecker beak ache if it tries it again.
Next Spring I will put in an undamaged brood box and properly repair the old one.

As you both know I don't make New Year Resolutions but at a recent bee keepers meeting the main discussion was about what we intended doing differently this year.
'To stop being stupid and getting stung so much' immediately sprang to mind but the one thing I will/may try to do differently is swarm control.
When talking to other bee keepers I am aware some of my views are not entirely widely held. I'm not too bothered about swarm control and a very expert bee keeper I know said to me he didn't understand why beeks were so preoccupied with it  - 'you get a nice new young queen and get rid of an old one'.
The problem is that there are apparently 29 different methods of doing it - all with their own fervent disciples.
Much discussion at the meeting focused on what's called the Pagden method but a week or so later a very distinguished bee keeper and author wrote an article saying the Pagden method wasn't very effective and advocated using what is called the Snellgrove method.
Don't ask me to explain it - as I read it it made perfect sense and about 30 seconds later I couldn't remember a thing.
Old age gets you like that and I share Homer Simpson's view that:-

every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?”

I do have some exact instructions on how to do it so expect a blog about this sometime later this year.