How was it for you?

Ok, so it's not quite year-end, but it's the middle of November and cold enough and wet enough to look back on 2019 and weigh up the year as a whole. Even though it happens every year, I am still taken aback in the autumn to realise that only a few weeks ago I was sweltering in my bee suit as I placed parasols over the hives to provide them with some shade from the relentless sunshine. How things change - it's 4c outside now, but two months ago we were harvesting honey in 32c!

The warm wet Spring meant that there was an abundance of forage (in this area, at least) for our bees. Our meadow was chock-full of the usual borage,

Cheapest is not always best

Whilst reviewing some of our old blogs (you can still find them here) and figuring out which, if any, to copy across to our new site, we came across this picture of a lovely colony of Ligustica bees that we removed from a window space.

Nearly a year on and the bees are doing fine in their new home but it reminded us of the state of the first new home we tried to move them into and on digging out that particular brood box this month, it looks even sorrier!

We bought 3 or 4 of these Dadant brood boxes as part of a 'special offer' deal from a supplier we no longer use and the old adage of getting what you pay for seems to ring true in this case. Purists will notice that the box is built with nails rather than tenon joints and from pine rather than age-old cedar, but those options make hives very, very expensive.  We hoped we had found a cheaper compromise between quality and price but some of the boxes now need some remedial work - after only one summer.

What you can see on the outside of the box is resin which seeped out of the wood, underneath the hive paint which was supposed to offer some protection. Evidently the wood wasn't as seasoned as it should have been, the sun was stronger than I think anyone anticipated here in the Charente last summer and lastly, the 'protection' in the hive paint wasn't up to coping with the previous two points!

After a winter in our storage room, the resin is solid and will have to be sanded off with some heavy duty disks or paper.  Then, I think we will leave this box along with it's offending partner, in a dry place and let it season for the whole of 2019 before re-painting ready for use in 2020.

So, we won't be looking for the cheapest pine hives we can find from now on. But neither will we be paying the exorbitant prices some 'craftsmen' charge for hives which are not sufficiently superior to justify the premium asked.  It's mid-market, high-review-score products for us from now on.  Although, the leaking pine resin did smell lovely :-)

We know many people make their own hives and if we had the time and the precision woodworking equipment, we'd probably do that too but it's just as effective (for us) to buy Dadant equipment ready-made.  That said, we will be building a bespoke Layens hive later this year ourselves and will share pictures as we go along...

Asiatic Hornets - to Trap or not to Trap?

According to the information available on Asiatic Hornet life-cycles - plus a large dose of observation over the past several years - over-wintered AH queens have been out on the wing looking for carbohydrate-heavy forage since the end of February.

Now this knowledge gives us a tough choice...

We try not to kill any creatures and to let nature sort out the balance between the various species who share our home with us.  But... we know that each queen can go on to build nests that will house thousands of adult hornets, each capable of eating up to 50 honeybees per day during the summer.  So any queens we can stop during the Spring could mean saving entire colonies later in the year.

Trapped Asiatic Hornet queens from the garden

Whilst our choice won't be for everyone, we have decided to trap queens now and have weighed this up as the lesser of several evils (certainly not a choice we wanted to make).  Consequently, we have been experimenting with various types of traps and, more importantly it would seem, the lures/bait to go inside them.  There are many, many types of trap available and a quick Google search will reveal lots of interesting and entrepreneurial ideas from beekeeping suppliers and beekeepers alike from all over Europe.

Some are very simple - make a trap out of a fizzy drink bottle, for example.  And some are ingenious but in our view, to be truly successful at protecting honeybees,

Someone's hungry: reassuring 'Proof of Life' in our hives

We all know that the winter months can be quite nerve-wracking for beekeepers: will the bees survive? are the hives insulated properly? do they have enough stores to see them through to the spring? We do what we can, placing foam inside the roofs, or installing quilt boxes, and we heft the hives to calculate the amount of honey they have left, but we don't really know what's going on inside. On sunnier warmer days a few bees may venture out to see what forage is around (and to have a quick poo!) and it's heartwarming to see pollen being taken into the hive at this time of year. 

I was especially encouraged though to see "proof of life" (or at least proof of stores being raided!) when I slid out the bottom board of one of our hives today. As you can see in the photo above, lines of wax cappings have fallen from the frames where the bees have been uncapping the honey stores, showing that they have been accessing the food in great quantities. I have to be vigilant that they don't run out of food too soon and so have added some extra candy over the feeder hole in the crownboard, but I am happy to know that there are a lot of bees in this colony and they are all actively feeding. Fingers crossed for the next few weeks!

Make Mine a Pint!

 As we approach the Spring Equinox (and with it, a 'Worm Moon' apparently!) the longer days mean that we are seeing more and more of our bees as they venture out to inspect the lay of the land. Obviously locating forage as soon as possible is important as the queens will be laying and brood (baby bees) need to be fed. Finding water is every bit as key to the colony's survival as sources of pollen, so we always advise that you put out some water for your bees. This needs to be in a shallow container, ideally with various items such as leaves or pieces of wood for the bees to stand on to ensure that they don't drown while drinking. We diligently do this in our apiaries, along with placing pots of damp soil near the hives (the bees can suck the moisture from the earth).

However, you know the saying "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink"? The same is true of bees; I have never actually seen any bees drinking the water that I carefully put out for them. The ingrates. Instead I find them around my watering can and the chickens' saucers. Their favourite drinking den, though, is the poor tortoise's water bowl.....who knows what it is but they love it! The important thing is that, like all living creatures, they need water to survive and so if you keep bees, please ensure they have access to a safe supply. If you don't keep bees, you can still do your bit to help them (and keep them from clustering around your swimming pool!) by putting out a pot of damp earth or a shallow saucer of water with a pebble or leaf in it. Cheers!