Dear Members,
With the wet weather we have been experiencing, give a thought to your bees and make sure that they are not sitting in a damp or frost pocket and that hives are weather proofed. Remember that bees can withstand cold temperatures and can deal with heat, but damp is a killer. Bees can ventilate the hive or warm it up, but they can’t deal with damp, mouldy conditions.
Dear Members,
Active beekeeping is coming to an end this month as we ensure that our bees are ready for winter; most importantly, do they have sufficient stores to get them through our prolonged and sometimes very wet winters, and have we completed varroa treatments to reduce the impact of varroa on those bees having to survive the next six months.
Dear Members,
You may have noticed a lot of butterflies around this summer. It is a delight to see them flitting from flower to flower with their splendid colours on view, but it also reminds me that as the butterflies are prospering, so of course are moths, and wax moths among them.
Dear Members,
The weather reports over the last month have frequently referred to ‘unsettled’, ‘variable’, conditions and that could just as well sum up the state of my bees. My experience, along with others’s experiences,seem to indicate that queen mating has been ‘variable’ verging on the ‘unsatisfactory’ this year.
Dear Members,
Beekeeping, a bit like Covid 19, can be hard to pin down. Trying to work out what the right steps are to take in a given situation, making mistakes, and feeling confused when things don’t go to plan seem to be par for the course in both situations.
