Brackley, England
Joined August 2017
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Not much going on at the moment. I may cook an egg and follow my 9 month old up the stairs. Very little bee work to note but I am looking forward to nurturing my 12 danish buckfast nucs next season.
Blue tick had to go. Couldn't justify the £8
Bit of an over estimate LOL
More like 10 buckets
Not a great ivy year although 1 or 2 sites have done best part of a super
Good to see british honey at a great price for sale at Sainsbury. Only one range though which is a bit worrying. Whats also worrying is the rampant food inflation & honey isn't matching that rate of inflation.
Seemed to be selling well though. 1 picked up while I was browsing.
Flighy I'm fine with. Grabby and they're gone.
I'm a bit worried about 2nd & subsequent generations losing their positive attributes. Not expecting an easy ride, will probably take 10 years+
I went from 450 at the start of last season to 320 to the start of this season.
I'm now on.239. It's a deliberate culling process mixed with a sprinkle of complacency & apathy.
The remaining bees are super, though! Most of the angry ones are gone.
This is the start of my queen breeding journey. This I hope will rejuvenate my enthusiasm. I won't be tolerating aggression and swarminess any longer.
12 drone mothers of Danish buckfast heritage. Old galls, 3 years old I think.
Well 11 actually, 1 has been killed already.
40k for a new L200. We paid lass than half that in 2016 for ours.
Are we getting x2 for our honey? No
Honey production is becoming too capital intensive like many other forms of farming.
Right on cue the Ivy comes in on a few sites (max 3 or 4f).
Some reckon it tastes like ass. It certainly is an aquired taste. There is a small market gor buckets.
Tastes good to me (warm, fresh, straight off the comb). It's only when it goes into a breeze block & seperates it's a pain.
If it taints your Summer honey it's a pain too as the taste carries!
IVY is delayed but has perked up A LOT
I'm predicting a bumper crop. Bees are strong and there's practically NO WASPS so huge nectar up for grabs.
Personally, I'm aiming for 1T off 240.
I'm hearing positive reports from the heather crop in Wales.
Let that sink in - they had practically no rain for 3 months leading up to flowering.
Bees love sunshine and high pressure. Same for us. No rain > big Summer honey crop. Hard to get your head around!
Chris Manton retweeted
Nucs nucs nucs. These are in the final run in to wintering now for spring sale. Project been a couple of years in planning. Everything brand new with overwintered home raised Jolanta queens.
Found a site badly affected by varroa today. 1 colony collapsing and 1 pretty much dead (a handful of sick bees).
Bees look quite tired and I reckon it'll be higher Winter losses going into next season.
Borage is now swathed. A pretty mediocre crop. Welsh bees are on some heather, which looks alright from the pictures but I doubt I'll yeild much.
It seems this was the year for Summer and the fringe crops around our main Summer flow have been weak cool summer and then dry.
For me, that worked well as I positioned the bees for Summer.
Numbers down to 250 (from 320). The few splits I did do, actually did well, so had I made lots of Splits then they would have done or box or 2.
Example if this is 2 frame swarm I picked up 1st May filled the brood box and most of S1. So most sites did well.
About 70% through extraction.
Getting worried about @calluna4u haven't heard anything from him in a while - probably too busy! Looks like they had a completely different world of weather compared to the scorched south!!