Apiary Autumn Closedown Saturday 7 April 2018

Hello Heavy Lifters

In retrospect

With an exceptional season at an end and shortening days, it’s again time to close bees down for winter. We’ve watched a late season light honey and a strong pollen flow, inspected all hives to confirm absence of death knell AFB and hive crippling EFB and chalkbrood, removed stickies cleaned up by bees following mid summer club honey extraction and requeened all Langstroth colonies. We even have a few spare nucs with recently acquired Manfroy queens of hygienic disposition and a few more more sporting good, but old, queens swapped out for newbies.

Will the honey gathering ever end?

And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

To Autumn John Keats

In prospect

So time for closedown, checking that all colonies have ample honey stores, all excluders are out and stored securely under hive lids and to spin out the last vestiges of honey from bee cleaned up stickies so they can be despatched for irradiation. This is an important event.  Having bees in good nick, headed by young queens and with great stores going into winter gives them the chance to come away early with minimal chance of early swarming.

All welcome to join the loyal royal Heavy Lifters Team. Then having contributed so much heavy lifter,  feel free to either volunteer to organise a club mead making event, head for the back shed to repair and paint bee boxes or put your feet up and contemplate the merits of Darwinian Beekeeping:

Thomas D, Seeley (2017). Darwinian Beekeeping: An Evolutionary Approach to Apiculture https://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org/darwinian-beekeeping

A familiar face in the club apiary, well on this occasion in his apiary

Join us in the apiary in spring 2018

Alan