Oh! how the summer has flown by... and now we are heading into autumn, and thinking about whether the bees have stored up enough throughout the summer to get them through this winter.
The hives at Embercombe have been doing really well this summer, building up to great numbers and showing a strength we haven't seen before. The two topbars in the garden, although behaving differently (one swarmed a number of times and the other didn't swarm at all) have both grown hugely and have enjoyed a bountiful summer.
The hives in the top field were slower to build up, but have got much busier in the last month or so.
This time of year is when we as beekeepers want to make sure the bees have enough honey stores to last them all of winter. Conventional beekeepers will have just done their honey harvest, replacing the mineral-rich, complex sugars of honey with a sugar syrup for the bee's winter sustenance. We choose to make sure the bees get through the winter before taking their precious stores... so if the winter is kind we may get some honey this spring.
We also need to think about other robbers that might be after the honey (other than us!) like wasps and mice. So we will be closing down the entrances to make them easier for the guard bees to defend.
Monday 5 September 2011
Tuesday 17 May 2011
Swarming time
As expected, May has brought us swarming adventures.
Our first swarm of the year came from a topbar hive in the garden called Light (we assume...). Although we had done a split*, it seems the swarming impulse remained and they swarmed. I found them clustered on an apple tree in the garden.
When bees swarm, a group of bees and a queen leave the hive in a big swirling mass and settle in a cluster nearby. From here, they send out scouts to look for a suitable new home.
It is at this stage that they are easiest to catch, so we got Jo's grandfathers skep (a beautiful 100 year old woven beehive). We then bashed the tree to knock the cluster into the skep, and left it propped open for the rest of the bees to climb in...
... A couple of days after re-homing the bees in a hive, they were gone... so we must have done something not quite right! Beekeeping can be such a rollercoaster of emotions. The joy and wonder of finding the first swarm of the year, watching them climb into the skep... and then the feelings of loss on finding them gone. I just hope they have found a beautiful wild home.
But the rollercoaster goes on, and the same day (so it could be the same bees!) a swarm was found high in the treetops in the woods. Hanging on the topmost branches of a lovely old oak was a beautiful big swarm cluster. This stayed for a few days through rain and sun until sunday. During the sunday while the 70 or so people on the friends weekend were eating lunch, a swirling mass of bees moved up the valley towards the top of the site...
we walked up following the swarm's slow pace, and ended up in the top apiary, where they headed into an empty dadant hive left there since the colony inside had collapsed.
*Split: Otherwise known as artificial swarming - once a colony has started queen rearing, to split off a few frames of brood and stores from the main colony, along with the existing queen or some queen cells, creating a new colony. This tries to capture the swarming impulse and means we don't loose the bees.
Our first swarm of the year came from a topbar hive in the garden called Light (we assume...). Although we had done a split*, it seems the swarming impulse remained and they swarmed. I found them clustered on an apple tree in the garden.
When bees swarm, a group of bees and a queen leave the hive in a big swirling mass and settle in a cluster nearby. From here, they send out scouts to look for a suitable new home.
 |
| Cluster on the apple tree |
 |
| moving into the skep |
It is at this stage that they are easiest to catch, so we got Jo's grandfathers skep (a beautiful 100 year old woven beehive). We then bashed the tree to knock the cluster into the skep, and left it propped open for the rest of the bees to climb in...
... A couple of days after re-homing the bees in a hive, they were gone... so we must have done something not quite right! Beekeeping can be such a rollercoaster of emotions. The joy and wonder of finding the first swarm of the year, watching them climb into the skep... and then the feelings of loss on finding them gone. I just hope they have found a beautiful wild home.
But the rollercoaster goes on, and the same day (so it could be the same bees!) a swarm was found high in the treetops in the woods. Hanging on the topmost branches of a lovely old oak was a beautiful big swarm cluster. This stayed for a few days through rain and sun until sunday. During the sunday while the 70 or so people on the friends weekend were eating lunch, a swirling mass of bees moved up the valley towards the top of the site...we walked up following the swarm's slow pace, and ended up in the top apiary, where they headed into an empty dadant hive left there since the colony inside had collapsed.
 | |||
| the swarm moving into their new home |
*Split: Otherwise known as artificial swarming - once a colony has started queen rearing, to split off a few frames of brood and stores from the main colony, along with the existing queen or some queen cells, creating a new colony. This tries to capture the swarming impulse and means we don't loose the bees.
Friday 15 April 2011
Intermediate Natural Beekeeping Course
We had our first natural bee keeping course of the year back in march. This one was for the more experienced, which allowed Phil Chandler and Tim Hall to take the participants a bit deeper into the world of bee keeping. We explored swarm control, hive splits, and had local bee inspector Adam Veevers talk about pests and diseases.
The beautiful weather also allowed us to go into some of the hives. We dusted 2 of the topbars and 2 of the dadants with icing sugar. We use icing sugar dusting as a way of encouraging 'hygienic behaviour' (cleaning themselves) among the bees to encourage them to clean off the Varroa mites. We have continued this treatment weekly, for 4 weeks, in order to catch the next adult varroa mites in the lifecycles. By the end of the four treatments the hope is that the mites will be down to safe levels for the bees to enter summer thriving.
Thursday 10 March 2011
Bees in the Willows
 |
| Bees on the Willows at Embercombe - Spring 2011 |
I feel like I've encountered a healthily large number of big beautiful bumble bees this year as the earth is reawakening. They join the honeybees on the beautiful willow trees colecting leg-fulls of pollen.
Honeybees collect pollen by gathering it in 'pollen baskets' on their back legs, which are basically a number of hairs designed to hold the pollen particles. Look closely at a hive entrance and you can watch returning foragers carrying a whole spectrum of orange and yellow pollens.
Saturday 26 February 2011
Welcoming the spring
Last saturday was a balmy sunny day, so Tim and I went and checked the 4 top bar hives.
These were the weakest hives going into the winter, 2 of which were caught swarms from summer 2010, the other 2 being a split hive from spring 2010. We fed heavily in late autumn and on checking were relieved to find 4 colonies alive and seemingly well.
'Light Hive' was full of friendly bees, and with pleasure we noticed capped brood towards the centre of the nest, some of which was hatching before our eyes. Replacing the combs of capped brood and plenty of stores, we quickly closed up this hive. Brood needs to remain at 35degrees C, so we didn't want to leave it out in the open to cool down.
'Dark Hive', although busy with plenty of bees and stores didnt show many signs of brood rearing yet. I dont feel too worried about this as its early days, and again we only briefly checked each comb in order to preserve the colonie's heat and atmosphere.
'Their Hive' (so called because the bees chose to build comb across, perpendicular to, the topbars, making them impossible to separate) seemed healthy, with a good number of bees. We devised a method of picking up all the topbars at once to look from underneath. really quite difficult to see into the hive, but with that comes a level of satisfaction and something quite empowering and trusting about leaving a hive just to the bees... its 'their hive'.
'Our Hive' (situated next to 'their hive' but with straight combs) seems the weakest of the topbar colonies. with few stores and few bees, this is one we will have to watch closely as spring continues. one worry is that during the unpredictable spring weather, bees out foraging may get struck down by sudden drops in temperature as the sun goes behind a cloud, or unforseen showers... thus further reducing colony numbers.
We are considering whether we want to stimulative feed this hive. this would involve feeding liquid sugar syrup to the colony, which encourages the queen to start laying (therefore increasing colony numbers within a few weeks). however, we are trying to manage our bees with as little intervention as possible, so we are reluctant to use this option without consideration.
hopefully I'll get some photos up soon of our apiary.
it feels great once again to have been standing amongst whirling bees and smell their sweet homes, and a relief to find wellness and strength, after a long cold winter.
These were the weakest hives going into the winter, 2 of which were caught swarms from summer 2010, the other 2 being a split hive from spring 2010. We fed heavily in late autumn and on checking were relieved to find 4 colonies alive and seemingly well.
'Light Hive' was full of friendly bees, and with pleasure we noticed capped brood towards the centre of the nest, some of which was hatching before our eyes. Replacing the combs of capped brood and plenty of stores, we quickly closed up this hive. Brood needs to remain at 35degrees C, so we didn't want to leave it out in the open to cool down.
'Dark Hive', although busy with plenty of bees and stores didnt show many signs of brood rearing yet. I dont feel too worried about this as its early days, and again we only briefly checked each comb in order to preserve the colonie's heat and atmosphere.
'Their Hive' (so called because the bees chose to build comb across, perpendicular to, the topbars, making them impossible to separate) seemed healthy, with a good number of bees. We devised a method of picking up all the topbars at once to look from underneath. really quite difficult to see into the hive, but with that comes a level of satisfaction and something quite empowering and trusting about leaving a hive just to the bees... its 'their hive'.
'Our Hive' (situated next to 'their hive' but with straight combs) seems the weakest of the topbar colonies. with few stores and few bees, this is one we will have to watch closely as spring continues. one worry is that during the unpredictable spring weather, bees out foraging may get struck down by sudden drops in temperature as the sun goes behind a cloud, or unforseen showers... thus further reducing colony numbers.
We are considering whether we want to stimulative feed this hive. this would involve feeding liquid sugar syrup to the colony, which encourages the queen to start laying (therefore increasing colony numbers within a few weeks). however, we are trying to manage our bees with as little intervention as possible, so we are reluctant to use this option without consideration.
hopefully I'll get some photos up soon of our apiary.
it feels great once again to have been standing amongst whirling bees and smell their sweet homes, and a relief to find wellness and strength, after a long cold winter.
Monday 10 January 2011
Embercombe's activist bees....
I wanted to share this. Phill Chandler of Friends of the Bees has sent the following announcement out... and its an excellently researched, clear and actually quite horrifying read...
OPEN LETTER TO THE BRITISH BEE KEEPERS ASSOCIATION
Since 2001, the British Bee Keepers Association has been receiving in the region of £17,500 per annum from pesticide manufacturers Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and Belchim in return for the BBKA's endorsement of several insecticides as 'bee-friendly'.
The BBKA policy of accepting money from such corporations, taken without consulting the membership, has been condemned by many of its members, other European bee keeping associations and some NGOs as unethical.
While the Executive seem now to have changed their mind again and have dropped the direct endorsement of pesticides, there are still some very important questions that need to be answered.
And - importantly - they have not ruled out accepting money from the pesticide manufacturers under other pretexts.
We call on the BBKA to sever all financial ties to manufacturers, sellers and promoters of any substance known to be or likely to be toxic to bees or other insects.
READ THE FULL TEXT HERE - http://www.britishbeekeeping.
IF YOU ARE A BBKA MEMBER - ask your delegate to support the Twickenham motion at the ADM on January 15th. See http://www.britishbeekeeping.
And look out for the story in The Independent!
Please distribute this message to all beekeeping friends.
Phil Chandler
www.naturalbeekeeping.org
OPEN LETTER TO THE BRITISH BEE KEEPERS ASSOCIATION
Since 2001, the British Bee Keepers Association has been receiving in the region of £17,500 per annum from pesticide manufacturers Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and Belchim in return for the BBKA's endorsement of several insecticides as 'bee-friendly'.
The BBKA policy of accepting money from such corporations, taken without consulting the membership, has been condemned by many of its members, other European bee keeping associations and some NGOs as unethical.
While the Executive seem now to have changed their mind again and have dropped the direct endorsement of pesticides, there are still some very important questions that need to be answered.
And - importantly - they have not ruled out accepting money from the pesticide manufacturers under other pretexts.
We call on the BBKA to sever all financial ties to manufacturers, sellers and promoters of any substance known to be or likely to be toxic to bees or other insects.
READ THE FULL TEXT HERE - http://www.britishbeekeeping.
IF YOU ARE A BBKA MEMBER - ask your delegate to support the Twickenham motion at the ADM on January 15th. See http://www.britishbeekeeping.
And look out for the story in The Independent!
Please distribute this message to all beekeeping friends.
Phil Chandler
www.naturalbeekeeping.org
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