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.
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