Summer season doldrums – The Apiarist

Synopsis : Climate, nucs, queens, swarms and wax. A potpourri of subjects that experience entertained me whilst looking ahead to the heather float to start out … if it begins. 

Creation

Possibly it’s previous age however the calendar appears to be dashing up in this day and age. The break of day refrain is only a chirrup or two, there are mushrooms showing far and wide, and I will be able to sense the top of the season galloping in opposition to me.

Or, perhaps that is just a little of a unusual season.

It slightly turns out to have were given began sooner than it feels adore it’s about to finish.

The height swarming length in my phase(s) of Scotland has lengthy long gone and the ‘June hole’ didn’t in point of fact occur, in all probability for the reason that summer time vegetation began early. It’s now overdue July and the lime and blackberry are over. There’s some rosebay willow herb left, regardless that now not a lot and the heather has but to correctly get started.

Those are the summer time doldrums; the time between the top of swarming and taking the summer time honey off. It’s a slightly quiet time for my beekeeping. It’s too overdue (in Scotland, no less than in my enjoy) for unswerving queen rearing and it’s too early for any severe wintry weather arrangements.

There’s now not a wish to behavior weekly colony inspections. I’m fairly assured that my colonies gained’t swarm now, regardless that I be expecting a couple of would possibly supersede .

That doesn’t imply they gained’t swarm … it simply manner my self assurance could be out of place 😉 .

In fact, that doesn’t imply that there’s no beekeeping to do … it’s simply that I’ve were given a little bit extra time to finish what I wish to do, and somewhat of spare time to do a couple of different comparable actions.

And, disappointingly, it appears as regardless that the summer time honey crop goes to be very deficient this yr, so in all probability this hiatus is successfully the top of the sensible beekeeping season … 🙁 .

Climate watch

Beekeeping is very much influenced via the elements. If it’s too chilly the bees won’t fly, if there’s a drought the nectar float is perhaps disappointing, and if afternoon rain is anticipated you’ll plan your inspections for the morning.

Maximum of my beekeeping is ‘coastal’ – I’m both influenced via easterlies coming in off the North Sea, or low power programs rolling in from the Atlantic. As a result, the elements can also be ‘changeable’.

This steadily manner rainy and/or cool.

It’s now not strange to search out my Fife east coast apiary blanketed in haar, whilst the ones additional inland are 8°C hotter and bathed in sunshine. At the west coast the elements can exchange in mins, from a balmy sunny morning to a claggy drizzle.

Dreich because it’s known as in Scotland (it seems that the ‘most well liked Scots phrase’).

I due to this fact spend time making plans issues in response to the (disappointingly spurious) predictions made via the elements apps on my telephone.

My fresh Fife go back and forth predicted a rainy morning adopted via a dry and sunny afternoon with rain reappearing within the night time. I due to this fact deliberate to force throughout within the morning, ship honey when it used to be dry after which shift a number of nucs as soon as the rain began (helpfully making sure the entire bees can be ‘at house’).

By means of mid-afternoon the rain used to be torrential as I carried more and more soggy cardboard containers packed with jarred honey to the farm stores I provide.

The rain had stopped neatly sooner than I were given to the apiary to transport the nucs and the bees had been flying once more.

Best … now not.

Climate apps

I prior to now used the app Darkish Sky for native climate forecasting. It appeared fairly correct and used to be in particular just right at predicting what used to be more likely to occur in the community inside the subsequent hour or so. Sadly, Darkish Sky used to be purchased out via Apple in 2020 and killed off totally on the finish of remaining yr.

It seems that, probably the most code used to be built-in into the Apple Climate app, however that’s little use to me as my telephone is Android 🙁 .

I’ve due to this fact been lowered to the usage of the BBC climate app and the only supplied via the Met Place of job. The BBC predictions declare to be based totally upon Met Place of job knowledge, however it’s now not strange for them to be wildly divergent from the ones made via the ‘legit’ Met Place of job app.

Wildly divergent, however each improper.

Of the 2, the BBC app is extra improper and extra steadily improper. No longer a commendable function.

Neither are a lot just right at offering correct native climate predictions over brief (hours) timescales.

As I carried the ones soggy cardboard containers into the store the BBC used to be nonetheless optimistically appearing a little bit white cloud icon with the solar peeking thru at the back of it.

Pointless.

If readers have an offer for a Darkish Sky alternative (for Android) please go away a remark – it’s ‘hyper-local’ and brief time period predictions that almost all hobby me. Within the intervening time, it seems that the Apple Weatherkit API (necessarily the code that accesses the underlying knowledge) contains a large number of the Darkish Sky capability and is utilized by Android climate apps comparable to Actual Climate, Forecaster and Weawow .

Are those any use?

All of which used to be a slight digression …

Heather watch

The lime right here used to be hopeless. I believe it used to be heat, dry and calm sufficient for the bees to get admission to it, and the bushes to yield, on simplest a few days. The bramble has flowered neatly and it appears as regardless that it’ll be a bumper yr for blackberries however the principle summer time/overdue summer time nectar this is heather.

Having consulted the elements apps I ventured up the hills at the back of the home to take a look at how the heather is progressing. There’s a bit within the ‘lawn’, however it’s much more sheltered down right here so doesn’t give a correct indication of ways neatly it’s more likely to flower.

It used to be beautiful to be out. The hills had been quiet, simplest the plaintive calls of golden plover at the upper slopes may well be heard over the wind. There have been bachelor events of stags, all with antlers nonetheless ‘in velvet’, up at the ridges. They’re all buddies these days, however can be implacable enemies as soon as the rut begins in 8-10 weeks.

Some patches of heather had been in complete flower, and busy with bumble bees, however so much used to be nonetheless no less than 7-10 days clear of flowering. Disappointingly, virtually as a lot regarded dried up and withered, possibly after the protracted drought we had in Might/June.

The moors listed here are unmanaged and the heather is mediocre to deficient at the most productive of occasions. We by no means get the ones unbroken swathes of crimson stretching to the horizon you notice at the controlled grouse moors … however I’d a lot want no muirburn, and the risk of seeing chicken harriers and eagles, than a couple of further supers of heather honey.

Inevitably, the rain I were given stuck in coming off the hill wasn’t predicted 🙁 .

Past due season inspections

Colony inspections are much less vital as soon as the risk of swarming is over.

How do I understand it’s over?

In the beginning as a result of maximum of my colonies had been requeened and secondly for the reason that climate and nectar float have contrived to restrict midsummer colony growth.

I’m due to this fact examining as soon as a fortnight now, and am not likely to appear thru a field a lot after mid-August. I’ll nonetheless must open them for feeding and treating, however I gained’t be lifting many frames.

I stay a few of my Fife bees in a pal’s lawn. After I arrived on Monday he excitedly described the 2 swarms he’d noticed within the intervening fortnight, one in every of which had occupied his chimney 🙁 .

Having apologised profusely and talked in the course of the choices I in any case were given spherical to opening some hives to check the ‘scene of the crime’.

I’d moved the nucs from this website online the evening sooner than (with out opening them) however used to be beautiful assured none would had been sturdy sufficient to swarm … now not least for the reason that containers felt disconcertingly mild .

All of the hives had 2023 queens. Even though it’s conceivable they might have swarmed, the queen wouldn’t have were given some distance as she used to be clipped, so the bees would go back to the hive. They might then have swarmed somewhat later, in all probability when the virgin(s) emerged .

Possibly the primary swarm my good friend noticed used to be with the clipped queen and the only 6 days later (that occupied the chimney) used to be headed via a virgin?

Alternatively, once I checked, the entire hives had the clipped, marked queens I’d remaining noticed a fortnight previous.

Phew!

n+1 queens

However, it grew to become out, there have been extra queens than there have been hives.

One of the crucial containers had an open queen cellular at the central fringe of a body with a – very clearly – newly emerged virgin queen strolling round at the comb. She used to be very massive, very light and really ‘hairy’. The open cellular nonetheless had the flap hooked up and I wouldn’t be shocked if she had emerged inside the earlier hour.

It used to be a fortnight since I’d opened the field. Time sufficient for them to start out a cellular from an egg, and for the queen to emerge.

Alternatively, the field additionally contained the queen I had anticipated to search out there, and she or he used to be laying fairly neatly, marching optimistically about being tended via her retinue of staff.

This appeared like supersedure in motion …

I may just see not anything improper with the ‘previous’ queen. The brood trend used to be just right, the ratio of eggs to larvae to sealed brood regarded about proper, she used to be now not being avoided or chivvied via the employees.

In instances like this I suppose that the bees know absolute best. There turns out little level in pre-judging the end result via culling one or different of the queens. After I subsequent consult with (early August) there could also be two laying queens within the field.

I used to be relieved the bees within the chimney – and the ones shedding down the flue, lined in soot, onto the cream colored carpet! – weren’t mine.

It’s value remembering that a number of research display that swarms relocate no less than 300 metres when opting for a brand new nest website online.

Sadly I’d needed to piratize the bait hive from the apiary once I’d run out of brood containers or the swarm will have ended up there reasonably than the chimney (and the carpet 🙁 ).

Managing nucs

I’m making plans to overwinter a number of nucs. Maximum had been ready via harvesting a body or two of brood in all levels from a robust colony and slipping in a mature queen cellular, or a virgin queen I’d left to emerge within the incubator.

All however a pair now have mated queens.

Making nucs for overwintering, after which keeping up them thru overdue summer time and early autumn, could be a bit tough.

The sooner you get started them the much more likely the queen will mate effectively. Alternatively, then you possibility the abruptly increasing colony outgrowing the field … you’ll plan to overwinter a nuc and finally end up with a complete colony.

Reasonably higher survival possibilities, however now not superb if you wish to promote overwintered nucs 😉 .

Conversely, if you are making the nucs up overdue there’s an opportunity the queen won’t get effectively mated (and you’ve got much less time to test the brood she does produce) and then you possibility laying staff growing, or must unite the bees again with some other colony.

I wish to make the nucs early after which bleed brood off, the usage of it to give a boost to different colonies, so delaying swarming.

This calls for fairly cautious judgement of the power of the nucleus colony, the velocity at which the queen is laying and protecting a watchful eye at the forage to be had and the elements.

I in most cases take a body or two out, changing it with basis or drawn comb, while nonetheless making sure there are enough shops within the field. It’s clearly somewhat more uncomplicated doing this with a six body nuc field than a 5 framer.

If I am getting issues proper the scale of the colony plateaus. As the elements cools I forestall taking away brood to verify the nuc may be very sturdy going into autumn.

Wax works

So, even this overdue within the season there’s nonetheless a necessity for a couple of new frames. What’s extra, I’ve expanded my colony numbers at the west coast this yr and so desire a dozen extra supers for the – inevitably crushingly disappointing – heather harvest.

The frames aren’t an issue. In a contemporary clear-out of the shed I discovered masses of DN5’s and SN5’s I didn’t know I had 🙂 .

However no tremendous basis 🙁 .

The heather nectar float is not likely to be just right sufficient for them to attract a box-full of comb on foundationless frames. As well as, I want some frames with basis to interleave the foundationless frames or possibility them drawing brace comb far and wide.

That is the primary basis I’ve purchased for a yr or 3 so used to be shocked on the worth. Shocked as in stunned … there used to be not anything delightful about it. Ten packets of top rate basis are the most productive a part of £100.

Thankfully, the shed clear-out had additionally unearthed a field of extracted wax. It’s now not top quality and it’s in no way just right sufficient for candle making, or furnishings polish or – heaven forbid – cleaning soap.

However, very easily, it occurs to be virtually precisely the correct quantity to business for 100 sheets of top rate tremendous basis 🙂 .

Which is what I did.

Wax extractors

With world warming sun wax extractors would possibly appear to be a tempting choice. I constructed one years in the past once I lived within the Midlands and it labored neatly … so long as I remembered to stay turning it to stand the solar. Alternatively, it used to be too small and I used to be transferring to Scotland (!), so it used to be deserted, or repurposed.

I’ve additionally constructed a steam wax extractor. I butchered the steel aspect of a washer to make the ground of the extractor, most likely one of the crucial extra bad DIY jobs I’ve finished . It labored for a number of years, however at all times leaked – wax, water and steam – and, extra just lately, I gave in to temptation and purchased one from Thorne’s.

It really works neatly.

I will be able to soften out 20 frames from one fill of the steam generator and – importantly – on the time of the yr I’m generating the frames (the beekeeping season) I will be able to run the extractor overdue within the night time or on rainy days (when there are not any flying bees … and no solar).

I’m mindful there are lots of different ways of recuperating wax however I don’t produce sufficient to wish oil drums and gasoline burners cluttering up where when now not in use.

I stay just right wax – maximum brace comb, tremendous frames and so on. – and extract it one by one. These items isn’t traded in. Alternatively, the whole thing else will get chucked into the steamer and extracted. I then re-melt the wax with water in a slo-cooker, leaving it to settle and funky. The propolis and different garbage sinks and can also be scraped off the block to depart one thing that – while now not being precisely beautiful – can also be traded for some shockingly pricey basis 😉 .

And in any case … a conundrum

The remaining colony I inspected on Monday had two supers over a unmarried brood field. On lifting the supers off there have been a few dozen drones – or, extra as it should be, drone corpses – wedged in the course of the queen excluder.

The photograph is deceptive as I’ve grew to become the queen excluder the other way up. Those drones had been making an attempt to head from the tremendous into the brood field.

After I’ve noticed this sooner than it’s both as a result of there are laying staff within the tremendous or the queen had snuck above the excluder and the tremendous frames had been drawn on drone basis.

However this colony has now not been queenless and there used to be no signal of brood within the supers. 

I’m at a loss for words … how did the drones get there? The supers are saved in large part lined all the way through inspections.

Solutions on a postcard please …

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