Postwick

Today has been a warm sunny day and the bees in Postwick are making honey. Those hives that I gave fondant to on my lasted visit had eaten most of what I gave them and needed more.

The 2008 swarm are still drawing out comb to store the honey in. I gave them a bucket of feed.

The queen that bred from one of the two swarm colonies that I took to Postwick in the spring I've moved back to the allotment.

Old Costessy

The bees in Old Costessy I think are working both the balsam (judging by the white pollen on their backs) and the ivy (judging by the smell in the apiary). What kind of honey I am going to get as a result remains to be seen.

I Googled 'ivy honey' and ended up reading this I only know the heritage of some of my bees. I know for example that Tina's mother was an imported Greek Buckfast cross. And my German queen is Carniolan It is also apparent from their yellow colour that some of the swarms I pick up are Italian.

But many are black bees as Honey Stripes mother was. Unfortunately I have seen deformed wings in Honey stripes hive both at the beginning and end of this year. Even so her colony did very well and made a good crop of honey.

Allotment apiary

I have taken the last of the honey from the hives in the allotment today and started getting them ready for the winter.

Greengage83 is a large strong colony that I'm feeding with sugar syrup. The bees have just about filled their brood box with stores. Today I gave them a second brood box to clean up and store sugar in before I take away the bottom box (that I numbered 8). I want to unite a small colony with some of Greengage's bees. I will take Greengage to Postwick or Ringland.

The medium sized colonies that are on four or five frames I'm giving a block fondant to. But before putting the block of fondant onto the crown board I am checking that the queen is laying, taking out any undrawn frames and replacing with older drawn out frames, moving the brood to the center of the box and putting an equal number of empty (but drawn out) frames on either side. Finally I sprinkle some thymol crystals at the end of the lugs of the frames with brood and bees on them.

Holly at Old Costessy

I am beginning to give the hives at Old Costessy a complete 12.5 kilo lump of fondant to see them through the winter.

The last two hives to have a block of fondant will be Holly's hive and the hive facing south as both are still making honey.

I took two 2007 swarm colonies to Postwick in April after removing their queens. Both colonies re-queened in Postwick and have been pretty much left alone for the year apart from having some honey taken from them.

On inspection today neither had a queen to be seen (they are not marked) and both looked healthy with plenty of capped brood. I would have liked to seen the queens as I transferred the frames into a new brood box that is attached to a new floor.

One of the colonies is strong enough for me to take half their bees and give them a new queen. Unfortunately they were on a brood and a half. I have put the queen excluder between the brood box and super hoping that the queen is in the brood box. I should find out on my next visit which box the queen is laying in if I leave it for four more days.

Neither colony were bad to handle today.