After last month’s unpredictable weather, June has been ever so slightly less frantic! Bees seem to be building up well in their hives, with lots of brood and stores. They have finally been able to make use of the oil seed rape that flowered around here this month and that has really helped give them a boost after the horrible May we had.

We have continued to take off nucs this month, mostly British Standard (for National or WBC hives) but also Langstroth and 14 x 12 nucs. We are just about coming to the end of the nuc season, sending out the last few before calling it a day for this year.

This year has been a challenging season for beekeeping as the weather has meant it has been condensed into a few short weeks. Because of this, swarming has been one of the biggest challenges – it didn’t seem to matter what we did, the bees still swarmed!

As happens every year, we have already seen a few wasps hanging around and these can be seriously detrimental to colonies, especially small or weak ones. You can see here we found a little nest starting up in the laurel hedge that lines our apiary down at the lakes. It is important to remember that wasps also play an integral role in our pollination and ecosystem so we don’t want to kill them, but we will need to make sure that the bees are the strongest they can possibly be so that they are able to defend themselves. We will help them out by narrowing the entrance to the hive as well.

In the next few weeks, we will have to start looking forward to putting the bees to bed for the winter! As far off as that sounds, it is important to plan ahead and ensure the bees are in the best condition to go through the winter as they can be. This will mean making sure everything is queen-right, uniting any that are weak and making sure they have had their varroa treatment.