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,
dandelions, vetch and daisies, but we also had a few newcomers such as beautiful wild orchids and calendula. The false acacia trees along the river bank blossomed and the flowers remained for several weeks as the usual blustery gales didn't materialise. Also, the Himalayan balsam on the river flowered early, providing our bees with plenty of choice.

There were three notable heatwaves over the summer, so we helped our colonies by creating small gaps between the brood boxes and supers to aid with ventilation of the hives, and of course placed parasols over each one. We also ensured that there was plenty of fresh water dotted around our property.

The major difference between 2019 and 2018 was the significant decrease in Asian hornet predation of our bees - hurray! We were very proactive this year, and ready for them; we trapped emerging hibernating queens in the Spring so that they couldn't build nests, and this did seem to retard the first appearance of the hornets in the summer. We spotted the first ones in July but no more until the end of August, and those we trapped. We continued trapping until the beginning of November, using our selective mesh cone traps (see previous blogs for further detail), and have seen no more hornets since then. We are mindful that this year's queens will have gone into hibernation by now and so we need to be vigilant in Spring 2020.

The increase in available forage, and the decrease in the presence of predators, meant that our honey harvest this year was the best ever. One of our most prolific colonies in honey production terms was a swarm that we collected in June. Ever since we settled them here at 13 Bees they have been eager-beavers, working hard to grow the colony and store honey. They definitely earned their keep!

Swarm season lived up to its name and we were called out to collect swarms on several occasions. Not all were easy, and not all were swarms - one was in fact a large established colony deep in a barn wall, but we did what we could and were able to re-home thousands of bees.

We've been lucky in that we've met lots of lovely people either wanting to take up beekeeping or to learn about how they can help bees, and we hope that this continues next year. We're expecting to be able to furnish our latest students with their own bees when we collect swarms in just a few months' time.

Over the summer we fostered a couple of hives for fellow beekeepers, one of which was an experimental Layens hive, consisting of a large brood box within which the frames are placed portrait-wise rather than landscape-wise. The frames were not waxed save for a starter strip of foundation wax at the top, leaving the bees to build natural comb down the frame. They stored nectar and pollen at the top and the brood filled the comb as it was built, so the queen was always laying in clean new comb. We enjoyed observing how the bees coped with this tall narrow hive and aim to have our own Layens next year.

Even though the autumn and winter is a quieter time for beekeepers, we are still busy, from cleaning and checking equipment, to ordering new suits and gloves for our students, to keeping an eye on our hives. We regularly heft them to check that they are heavy enough ie the bees have enough stores to keep them going throughout the winter. If they get a bit light then we will add some fondant over the feeder hole in the crownboard and this will provide them with some extra food. We also check the straw in the quilt boxes and if it is too damp from absorbing moisture from the hive, then we will replace it with dry material. The weather forecast is checked daily and depending on how the temperatures are, we will either add or subtract insulation, which is placed under the hive roof.

All in all it has been a good year here at 13 Bees - we're hoping that the winter will be cold and short (best for the bees) and that in just a few weeks we'll be greeting our bees again and starting the Spring cleaning. If you'd like to find out more about the courses we offer, or have any questions about beekeeping, please get in touch.