Thank you everyone for the condolences.
Helen asks -
I have a query - I reduced my Warre to three boxes last year (taking the
top box for honey), so when do I try and replace the empty box and should I
put it at the bottom (nadir) - and if so, how? ☺
On Sun, 13 Feb 2022 at 16:06, Oxnatbees <oxnatbees@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi everyone,
A few update items:
BBKA - The BBKA <http://bbka.org.uk> has a new chairman, Stephen Barnes.
This is significant because he was secretary of BIBBA <http://bibba.com>
(he's had to stand down from that role, conflict of interest). BIBBA has
about 1,000 members and whilst honey oriented, very much promotes local
bees, as we do They love swarms from wild colony survivor stock, and have
long struck me as being much more openminded than the BBKA. I've noticed
many of them mention they don't need to treat their bees for varroa.
Bee Season fast approaches as the weather warms up. The next few things
for late Feb and March to watch for are:
Signs of starvation - mid Feb - March is the time to check for possible
low stores. The bees will probably need 2-5 kilos of honey to get through
to when forage restarts in quantity, because they will eat stores fast now
as they begin raising brood who need to be kept warm. They *can* get in
trouble if they begin raising brood and the weather then turns bad. You can
monitor stores non invasively by:
- hefting the hive - does it feel significantly heavier at one end?
Several kilos heavier than an empty hive? If not you may need to feed.
- Looking through windows - if you see sealed honey right up to the
windows, that's a good sign, because they eat this last.
- Starving bees will exit the hive on warm days looking for food, but
are too weak to fly.
I generally don't bother feeding but I can afford losses (6 colonies,
from survivor stock so adapted to our weather). If you are worried you can
open the hive and inspect combs directly, but not in this weather. If you
decide to feed, use thick syrup (2kg sugar to 1 litre water). If you are in
your first year and are using commercial bees like Buckfasts, that's when
you may hit issues because they tend to breed where local bees say "I think
I'll wait for the weather to turn better".
Mouse guards to come off - do this once bees are becoming active
continuously (probably early March, but weather dependent)
Colony survival survey - As in previous years, I will initiate a survey
for our group to ascertain colony winter survival rate, late March
Swarms - these usually begin in Oxfordshire in late April, so we will
organise the "swarms wanted" list in March
Newbies - if you are a newbie or restarting keeping bees this year, and
need hives or equipment, now is the time to get this all arranged and in
place so you are not caught out when swarm season begins
On a personal level, my wife Lynne's mother, who lived with us for the
past 4 years, died recently. Our tradition here on a death is to tell the
bees, and pin a black ribbon on each hive which we did. Dealing with the
administration is absorbing a lot of our time so I've not been very active
on this mailing list and expect to be tied up with that on and off for some
time, but will be around as I can.
Paul
