This has been an unusually busy December as we have begun re-rigging the apiary ready for next year, as well as carrying out our usual December tasks.

At the beginning of the month, the bees were fed fondant to keep them going through the first part of winter. This year we have tried the Candiphenol. This is a fondant that contains polyphenols, proven to be beneficial for gut health. It was about 13°C when I went out to feed the bees, so some were actually flying. To avoid disturbing them, I simply placed the fondant on the top of the crownboard with an eke for height, instead of going into the hive and placing the fondant directly on the frames.

If you look closely, you can see that for their first feed of the winter, I cut the 2.5kg pack in half and fed that to each colony. I have found in the past that although some colonies gobble a 2.5kg pack of fondant up leaving none to spare, many do not quite finish it and it ends up hanging around as you do not want to throw it out. In my experience, it is less wasteful and easier to monitor a hive’s fondant consumption than throwing a large pack on and leaving them to it for the entire winter. They will still need hefting throughout the winter months anyway, so I will take some fondant with me and feed any that look and feel hungry. A week later, I had a quick peek under a few of the roofs – some of the Candiphenol had gone a bit runny, which I have also found with other fondants like Ambrosia in the past. I generally take this as a good sign as it shows there is heat inside the hive warming up the fondant (and therefore bees inside!).

The other main job this month has of course been to start setting up the new apiary. The first part of this job has been to cut the overgrown hedges back. Here you can see the difference a trim has made to the apiary – the brown, leafy part to the left of the photo is where the hedge used to come out to! This will give us some much-needed space as we take a vehicle round the apiary. You can also see I have marked where the new slabs need to go using spare hive stands.

Needless to say, I have had quite a lot of help getting the trees cut back and will soon need some extra manpower when it comes to setting the slabs out so thanks go to the Thorne team for helping me out!