Most beekeepers will be familiar with the fungal disease chalkbrood, which is generally considered to be only of minor importance, but it remains a mysterious disease, and in some areas can be devastating. In a new paper published in the Journal of Apicultural Research, Dafu Chen and colleagues from the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, … Continue reading New Information about Chalkbrood
New Queen, New Palace
I moved the nucleus colony with my new breeder queen into a full-sized hive today, it was too hot to wear a bee suit or jacket, so I wore just a hat and face veil. I'm pleased to say that even though my smoker was lit, and on standby, I did not have to use … Continue reading New Queen, New Palace
New Breeder Queen
I had a phone call last week, from Marco Melo of Api-Bees in Kent, offering me a new breeder queen, with a colony of bees in a poly nuc. I was very happy to accept Marco's offer, and we arranged a time for me to collect the nuc from Marco's home in Kent. I tied … Continue reading New Breeder Queen
Queens All Doing Well
I inspected all the hives and nucs in my garden apiary today, all looking good I'm happy to say. The queens from my own queen rearing programme are all doing very well, with nice solid, healthy looking brood pattern. I also introduced 2 new virgin queens into nucs, hopefully they'll be out on their mating … Continue reading Queens All Doing Well
2018 Vintage
After extracting the first batches of honey last week, I gave up waiting for my jar order to arrive, and bottled what honey I could with the jars I still had in stock. When my jars (finally) arrive, I will decant the honey from the storage buckets into the jars and put my "Honey for … Continue reading 2018 Vintage
Good all round
I inspected the hives at my out apiaries today, all in good order and the new queens are laying well. I found a new queen in one of the hives at Friars Green and marked her. One of the new queens that I placed into a hive two weeks ago is laying up a storm, … Continue reading Good all round
New Batch of Queens
My latest batch of queens are emerging today - I must've got the timings spot on, as they are emerging within minutes of each other. Some nice lookers in this batch too. They'll all be going into nucs for overwintering.
Wet Supers & Jars of Honey
I went around 9 hives today, carrying out inspections and placing wet supers back on the hives for the bees to clean, and hopefully refill with honey. A wet super is the term used for a super full of frames that have had the honey extracted from them, and have remnants of the honey still … Continue reading Wet Supers & Jars of Honey
Extraction Day
It was another hot day, but slightly cooler than of late - 'only' 26° C, and as I have all but run out of supers, I had to do some extracting so I had some supers I could put back on the hives. Extracting is a hot, sticky process however much you prepare. I donned … Continue reading Extraction Day
Another Busy Few Days
I've had a couple of busy days again, nipping round all my apiaries to put clearer boards on hives so that I could remove some honey supers. I took supers off from two sites today, and put the clearer boards on at a third. I will be taking the supers off from the third site … Continue reading Another Busy Few Days
