31 July 2024
The July edition of our 2024 blog. Written by the beekeepers here at Thornes.
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This month we have been slowing down on nuc production and concentrating more on queens. These have been sent out in the post so fingers crossed Royal Mail deliver their Majesties to their destinations safe and sound!
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With the recent warm weather we are seeing a huge nectar flow, to the point where some of the bees have been struggling for space. This has meant a bit of juggling around of frames and boxes to make sure we can still provide the queens with somewhere to lay. We also suspect that this huge increase in nectar is to do with the large amount of set aside in the fields surrounding the bees here at Thorne HQ, which includes plants such as mustard and phacelia. You can see from this photo how strong the bees were in this colony when we went to give them some new frames to play with!
Swarming has continued late into the season this year, not surprising given the recent flow and now lack of room inside the hives. This has included a swarm that have appeared underneath the floor, which we have seen a few times over the years.
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As you can see here, they built up some lovely comb on the bottom of the open mesh floor. Obviously, they can’t stay there so the second photo shows the bees being shaken into a new hive. The wax has to come off too so very carefully we had to get as many of the bees into the hive as possible, keeping an eye out for the queen and then scraping the comb off. Fingers crossed this swarm hasn’t come too late and will be a viable colony through the winter. The next big job will be to standardise every colony down to a manageable size and if necessary, treat for varroa.
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