Beekeeping

So far so good with the bees, the warm summer has provided an improved spring crop on last year 300lb as opposed to 200lbs last.

The big harvest comes at the end of July and is so far looking good, things could yet change but if the weather stays fair we should considerably improve on the past three years yield.

Some hives are looking very good this is after I took 20lbs of each of these hives.

Thinking about developing the bee side of the business next year I will have to treat for Varroa (as usual) and Nosema which took about a third of my colonies this year as well as reducing the viability of a good number of others. I suspect we have had the relatively new disease Nosema cerana for a couple of years which would explain the poor spring build up as it kills adult bees so weakening the colony with no obvious symptoms in the hive.

So in addition to treating for disease I am going back to splitting hives in spring before they start thinking about swarming. I have been using checkerboard techniques to spread the brood and provide an open brood nest but in a big swarming season like this year it is rubbish at controlling swarms. So I will split as soon as I can put 3-1-1 frames in each split brood- food-pollen, then introduce queen cells into each half. If I find the queen I will make a nucleus up with a single frame of brood as back up.