Ling heather (Calluna vulgaris) honey is out there on its own for flavour and character. It is rich, reddish amber in colour with a musky flavour; open the jar and the scent of the hills will fill the room. Turn the jar upside down and it won’t budge – this is because it is thixotropic – in other words it forms a viscous gel and will not flow which means it cannot be spun out of the frames like other honeys but has to be pressed from the comb or sold in the comb either as sections or cut-comb.
It’s amazing that the ivy came into bloom in early August this year and it is still flowering and the bees are working it 3 months later!
Admittedly the earliest flowering ivy was a few miles downhill from here and we are on up on the north face of a chilly hill where most things are late, however – it’s still quite a spread you must admit.
Every warm day now, the bees are all over it gathering pollen and whatever nectar there may be. Spot the bee – click on the photo below for a better view.
Honey bee working the ivy (Hedera helix) in November
Some of the flowers in this picture were pollinated some time ago and you can see the berries developing, russet now but black later. Some are still in full bloom and others are only buds. These last will almost certainly not open at all.
Now that Small Hive Beetle (SHB) has been found in Europe, member states have the power to bring in legislation to protect their resident bees, and their beekeepers, from SHB. Member states can now ban the importation of the following agents of spread:
So what do we do on the day we find small hive beetle scuttling about amongst our bees?
It seems that, with the exception of Portugal, whenever it has reached a new country it has managed to get itself well established before anybody notices it and once it is established there is no shifting it. Then we are looking at putting more pesticide strips into our hives and also ploughing up the surrounding soil and drenching it with chemicals which are currently illegal in Europe… Continue reading Small Hive Beetle (SHB) Control→
Small hive beetle (Aethena tumida) is originally from sub-Saharan Africa where it is an insignificant pest – an inconvenience. It occupies a scavenger role – a sort of insect vulture – picking off weak African honey bee colonies and polishing off the dead. African honey bees have evolved defence mechanisms against the beetle… Continue reading Small Hive Beetle (SHB) Life Cycle→
At the end of the summer, it is not always possible to find a colony in need of a new queen, especially after a summer as good as this one (2014) when it seems all the queens mated well. Nor is it always possible to find colonies with sufficient sealed brood to make up a nuc without weakening them unduly before winter. So what to do with those last, late queens in your Apideas?
Here is the quandary I found myself in this year: I had several sad little queenless Apideas and two other strong ones, each with five frames (feeder removed) and with good laying queens in them. I can never quite face shaking the poor queenless bees out, nucs weren’t possible and there’s nothing so sad as watching an Apidea dwindle its way into winter with laying workers and a bellyful of slugs.
‘Why would you want to?’ says you. Well the news on the streets is that it’s only a matter of time before it will be announced that research into the health benefits of ivy honey has discovered it to be the best thing since Manuka – I’m serious. Click here for more about ivy honey.
Strong ivy flow (23.10.14) note the yellow pollen loads. Click photo for full size image
However, taking a crop of ivy honey is problematic for several reasons:
It sets in the comb even more quickly than rape honey so is difficult to extract;
It is the last honey flow of the season and the bees build up on it and rely on it for their winter stores;
By the time you take it off it could be too late to feed before winter sets in.
There are many reasons during the course of the season why you might need to replace a queen bee. She could have become a drone layer, you may have killed her by accident or it could be that the bees need to be improved by the addition of a new queen with better genes. Whatever the reason, you can’t just put her in because they will almost certainly kill her – although I have known cases where clipped queens have fallen to the ground in failed swarming attempts and have then made their way back up the stand legs and into the front door of a queenless neighbour! Continue reading Quick queen-bee introduction – Matchbox Method→
If, like me, you have placed your Apidea/s in a spot that overheats in very hot weather you can easily cool them down and stop them from absconding by draping a white flannel or a strip of pale towelling over them like an Arab headdress. The pale colour will reflect a lot of the heat and if you periodically drench the cloth with cold water the problem is solved.
Alternatively you could just put a big sponge on the roof and wet it at intervals. Make sure there is a slope is away from the entrance or water will run in.
Also, make sure that you have the ventilation grille partially open so the bees can circulate the air. If you fully open the door you will fully close the grille so avoid that – see the photo above.
