Blog

August

August has gone so quickly! We can’t quite believe we are thinking about getting the bees ready for winter already.

This month has been another scorcher! We did have a period of time when, due to the heat, there was nothing much for the bees to forage on so they needed feeding. This time we fed them fondant as it was simply too hot for syrup. Robbing by other bees and wasps caused by syrup spillages is just too risky at this time of year, so the fondant went up in the top feeder. We wouldn’t normally put the fondant in a feeder in winter because the food needs to be close to the bees to stop them from chilling, but at this time of year feeding fondant up in the top seems to minimise robbing and the bees take it without issue.

We have also been sending out the last few of our queens. Queen rearing is another operation entirely so it has been a learning curve producing as many as we have this year but we are very happy with the quality and quantity of queens we have bred. We hope our customers will be as happy as we are!

In preparation for winter, we have been making sure all our colonies look healthy and able to survive. We have also put any bees that have been in nucs into full sized hives to give them chance to build up before closing them up for the winter.

This picture was taken shortly after bees were placed into full sized hives. As you can see there was slight confusion as to where their new homes were, but this soon settled down.

Mouseguards have already been placed on these hives with smaller colonies to prevent wasps taking advantage at this time of year.

Next month we will really be consolidating the bees, making sure each and every colony is in tip top condition going into winter.