Category: Learning

Learning resources

Honey Harvest

This is the best time of the year – the time we find out whether our husbandry has helped or hindered our colonies to prepare enough honey for us to remove a good harvest of honey whilst leaving enough to see the bees through the winter. After all that’s why they are storing the honey.

In mid August Martin removed the full supers from the apiary’s hives after first inserting a clearing board to remove most of the workers from each super. A task best done with two people as there is much lifting of heavy boxes.

On Sunday 17 August we held the first of two training sessions at the Gower Honey Cooperative’s honey room in the kitchen of Llanrhidian Village Hall. DOC gave a short talk about the need for hygiene at every stage of the process from removal of the supers from the hives, transporting to the honey room, extraction of the honey from the frames and the ripening of the extracted honey (allowing the honey to settle with air bubbles and flakes of wax rising to the surface).

On Sunday 31 August the Hive to Jar process was completed. The honey is ready for sale at Llys Nini in support of RSPCA fund raising.

May bursts onto the scene

The spring blossoms have been and gone. The first two days of May have been like summer. Indeed at 15:00 the first swarm of the year (for me) arrived in my garden. The previous day I had witnessed a lot of activity around the stack of boxes just on the other side of the fruit cage to my single hive at the top of my garden. Hardly worth the name of an Apiary though I have had three hives there in previous years.

As the brood box was stacked between two supers and the bees were exploring a hole in one corner of the brood box (should have repaired that by now) I twisted the brood box so that entry under the corners would be easier. I did not have time to move the brood box onto a stand and floor last night as I twisted my back doing this manipulations without my suit on (always a mistake). So this afternoon I had to watch helplessly as the swarm took up residence in the wrong place.

This is a timely reminder to continue the weekly inspections I started in April. I was lucky to find that all five colonies had survived the winter without the ravages of moth wax which many beekeepers suffered last season. The colonies were Queenright, evidenced by the biscuit coloured sealed brood. No queen cells.

Now in May the likelihood of swarming is increasing and it is important to check your hives regularly for the early signs of swarming. And don’t forget to be keeping a lookout for the health of the colony.