Post by roadrunner on Sept 1, 2013 8:26:52 GMT
Well the season is almost over and we have had 160lbs of honey from 3 x hives. We artificially swarmed one of our hives and now have 4 x hives going into winter. 3 x WBC and 1 x National.
Due to our new method of honey processing we have quite a lot of wax to process. When we get our stainless steel tray, which is being manufactured by a local engineering firm, I will make a Solar Wax Extractor. Hopefully we will have enough warm days to enable me to use it this year.
On my last inspection on 17th August I noticed that 2 x hives were Queenless. One I suspected was as a result of swarming, I think I may have killed the queen in the other hive when manipulating frames.
After searching around I bought 2 x young mated "Carniolan" queens which were put in the hives on 28th August. I do not intend to open any hives again this year as even if I open them up in a couple of weeks time to check if the queens are laying there is nothing I can do about it if they are not.
Today I started the bees on a 2:1 syrup mix. Whilst I now prefer Ambrosia I am giving them syrup because I have around 12kg left from my bulk purchase last year.
In a weeks time I shall give them their first tray of Apiguard followed by the second 2-weeks later, which I will remove 3 weeks after that.
Another job on my never ending list is to manufacture a "Steam Cleaner" I got this idea from a Forum discussion with Steve. Mine will not be as posh as Steve's, it will simply be 2 x flat pieces of plywood which will sandwich various hive parts (brood boxes and supers). The top piece of ply will have a hole for the steam cleaner pipe and the bottom piece will have a drain hole. I can of course also put the frames in and clean them at the same time as the boxes. I will let you know if it works.
Other than that there is nothing else to report.
Due to our new method of honey processing we have quite a lot of wax to process. When we get our stainless steel tray, which is being manufactured by a local engineering firm, I will make a Solar Wax Extractor. Hopefully we will have enough warm days to enable me to use it this year.
On my last inspection on 17th August I noticed that 2 x hives were Queenless. One I suspected was as a result of swarming, I think I may have killed the queen in the other hive when manipulating frames.
After searching around I bought 2 x young mated "Carniolan" queens which were put in the hives on 28th August. I do not intend to open any hives again this year as even if I open them up in a couple of weeks time to check if the queens are laying there is nothing I can do about it if they are not.
Today I started the bees on a 2:1 syrup mix. Whilst I now prefer Ambrosia I am giving them syrup because I have around 12kg left from my bulk purchase last year.
In a weeks time I shall give them their first tray of Apiguard followed by the second 2-weeks later, which I will remove 3 weeks after that.
Another job on my never ending list is to manufacture a "Steam Cleaner" I got this idea from a Forum discussion with Steve. Mine will not be as posh as Steve's, it will simply be 2 x flat pieces of plywood which will sandwich various hive parts (brood boxes and supers). The top piece of ply will have a hole for the steam cleaner pipe and the bottom piece will have a drain hole. I can of course also put the frames in and clean them at the same time as the boxes. I will let you know if it works.
Other than that there is nothing else to report.