Robbers

This time of year beekeepers are wary of robbers- other bees, woodpeckers and wasps which are on the look out for easy honey or food. They do their best to protect the colonies by reducing the entrances so the pests find it hard to get access but they still try!!

September on the Allotment

All the potatoes have been gathered in now- there have been fantastic crops of French beans and we are struggling for space in the freezer to store the amount of raspberries, blackberries and other soft fruit. As we have cropped the beds green manure has been sown to strengthen the condition and fertility of the soil. These are left until the beds are needed and then dug in.

Recently on a visit to Sissinghurst they had sown Yellow Trefoil and then companion planted with squash to help with feeding and moisture retention for the vigorous squash plants. We have various varieties of squash this year and try them in a three sisters bed- sweetcorn, borlotti beans and squash together- as well as in raised beds. These potimarron were a favourite last year and kept really well in the cool dark garage. hopefully this year there will be a few to store again- we still need some more good growing weather to ripen them yet!

Autumn Bees

Back in the hive after the 1st Apiguard teatment things look good- there are less then 100 mites on the varroa board and its been on for over 2 weeks. From what I have read this is quite a low count so it looks as if the bees are doing well in this respect! The brood box is really full now, with activty on all the frames- as well as a  respectable amount of stores. Brigit is still busy with plenty of new eggs - I'm not sure if this is OK as at this time of year things should be slowing down in terms of brood. The new bees emerging now should be the 'winter bees' which will live for the whole of the winter and start the colony going in the spring next year if all goes well!

Bedding Down

This is the time of year we prepare the bees for winter- we have been feeding the bees with sugar syrup prior to treating for Varroa mite so the bees stand a good chance of coming through the winter as a strong colony. It is reccommended that a colony has about 60 lbs of stores to survive the winter, although we can feed with fondant during the winter if necessary, it is best to have a good amount of strores to set out with. After putting  the varroa floor in the hive we have monitored the drop for the past few weeks- the weekly count has been about 20- apparently not too bad for this time of year. Nevertheless we will be putting Apiguard on at the next check to get rid of some of the mites before evrything settles down for winter.

Where do they go?

We have planted our garden with a range of plants that are insect friendly- at different times of the year they provide nectar and pollen. So, at the top of the garden live our bees- the garden is full of butterflies, bumble bees ,hover flies and other ,mostly welcome insects. But hardly ever have we seen honey bees foraging around the garden, just the odd one on the buddlea or golden rod. So where do they go? Maybe the answer as Rob (picture courtesy of sustainablegarden.blogspot.com) suggests is the allotment. The borage, lavender and other herbs have recently been visited by honeybees in abundance-in theory the distance is within range; so maybe this is where they are doing their good work!!

Filling Frames

The weekly inspection went well today- the frames are filling up with loads of capped brood, eggs, larvae and stores. The bees are on 8 frames and drawing out one of the others, hopefully getting stronger and stronger all the time. There is no real honey forage crop at the moment so not much chance of a crop of honey this year,which we didn't expect, but you can always hope! Today we sprinkled icing sugar between the frames and put the tray under the mesh floor to gauge if  or how many varroa mites there may be in the hive. We will inspect this later in the week. I have been slightly worried about the wasps which seem to be thriving in the fruit trees at the back of the hive- they are attracted by the honeydew left by an infestation of greenfly on the trees. I am not usually vindictive, but these wasps may be a threat to our bees!!So we have put up wasp catchers baited by medlar jelly- this seems to be the most attractive to the wasps! Loads have been lured to a sticky death but they still keep coming!! Any suggestions to get rid of wasps will be welcome.

Bees After 3 Weeks

After a week of watching and wondering it was time to check out the bees again!

This weekend Adam helped out - the ladies had been really busy moving on to and drawing out more of the new frames- so much so that I took out the twelfth frame I had originally put in to fill space in the brood box. They had moved on to the one sided frame I had been concerned about and Birgit was dashing around. It was quite hot so we were fairly quick but even so we could see new eggs, larvae and a lot of capped brood. Today it is raining, which is good for the garden but hopefully there is still plenty of summer to come so the frames will keep filling to build up a strong colony!!