This month there haven’t been quite so many jobs to do with the bees but that doesn’t mean to say that they haven’t been busy. On the few nice, warm, sunny days we had this month, there were plenty of bees active and flying at the hive entrance. On one of these warm days, I quickly checked on the hive I united last month with the Adapta Eke and mesh screen. I was pleasantly surprised to see frames of brood and eggs in the top box of a double brooded hive. There seemed to be plenty of bees so I am hoping this will stand it in good stead to make it through the winter.

Once again, the Asian hornet traps have been emptied, studied and refilled with attractant. Although (thankfully!) we have not caught any Asian hornets, these traps have proved very useful for catching the high volume of wasps we seem to have experienced this year. Fortunately, the wasp levels have dropped significantly over the last month, but we will continue to keep the traps out for the Asian hornet.

As the temperatures have now dropped, there will be a variety of animals trying to make beehives their new homes. Mice are one of these guilty culprits so here at Rand, mouseguards have now been attached to the front of all hives. This stops them getting into the warm hives and making a mess of the combs over winter.  Mice can flatten their bodies to almost nothing but the round holes of the mouseguard are just too small for their skull to pass through.

Over the next month, our main priority will be to heft the hives and make sure each and every colony has enough food to get it through the winter.