Meagre pickings, feeding and Everything to play for!!
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- Опубліковано 20 тра 2024
- Hi Everyone, thanks for tuning in! well here we are at spring harvest, which this year is really poor! some colonies have'nt given any honey at all! Some just a little. Now its recognising that deficit and helping the bees to correct it!
In many yards I havent harvested anything , just fed bees! Hope you enjoy the video!
Intro music The fat Rat. www.thefatrat.com - Домашні улюбленці та дикі тварини
Mediocre amounts in Essex mate also . Got my winter jacket and hat on this morning let’s hope things pick up . All the best .
Brilliant Richard thank you
Time to sell funny honey 😂
Tried using leaf blower once to get bees out of super. Man those bees held on tight. Had to blow from both sides 3-4 times, then quickly relocate super. Had some fatalities as well. Dont use that method any more. Use queen excluder or fume board. Realize maybe different if have few hundred hives, time vs. $, etc...
Know what you mean take all the honey. Has been terrible weather. Feed the heck out of them is still a while before lime and chestnut is due. Also thinking making bigger splits this summer so they can give a better spring harvest.
Im the guy who gave you the chapstick at the expo. My hives have top brood boxes in my doubles that they backfilled the brood while they swarmed so that is just a backache and I’m rethinking next spring. My swarms are making new super combs tho.
I had a horrible experience with a leaf blower for supers, the bees attacked the blower and were getting sucked into it! It was awful. Just my experience! Thanks for the videos! Happy feeding!
interesting, i have had similar with streamers over the years but thankfully never repeated.
You are right Big ones are the ones that starve.
I am in Berkshire UK, I was fortunate that the estate I am on decided for the first time to grow OSR next to my hives. ~30lbs per hive was the spring harvest which was amazing considering the weather. The brood frames have capped stores but I have left at least a super full of honey on each colony in case we have a poor main flow again like last year. The brambles are in bud and have just started flowering - it's still May......I just hope that we will have a great summer flow and I just have a super of solid OSR honey on each hive 🙂
The icing sugar packs you get in supermarkets to put on your Christmas cake. These are very good to feed in the gap because bees find it very slow to take down so they don’t put it in the supers but it keeps the colony alive until the flow is back on that’s my tip.
Where I am the bees missed the rape seed because they couldnt get out for 2 weeks then the rape went over. I got 25% of what I did this time last year.
Me too 😢
Swarming, starving, feeding, no honey, tough place to keep bees. The hands-off approach in late winter is what it is, and it is showing. We feed, then split for swarm prevention, for go the spring honey and make a good summer harvest. Your spring honey only pays for feed, so it makes sense not to do the work of the honey harvest. You then have time for the splits that stop swarming.
Look up with people I talk to I was talking about how much nectar and honey that come in a whole lot more than usual I told them I would leave it on for a little while to make sure they didn't need it I noticed the eating a good bit that is what's on mine so I'm glad I didn't pull it yet
Hardly any honey left in my supers, i dont think i will take a spring crop this year. I have 10 acres of OSR 50 meters from one of my apaires, but whilst it was in flower the weather was too cold, so all it did was keep the bees going, but only just. Finger's crossed for a small june gap and a great summer flow.
Same here on the Isle of Wight, had some supers on hives that were nearly full but the bees are eating the honey. Also the oil seed rape didn’t give much this year as it was too cold for it to produce nectar.
Richard I used almond spray on I think they are called cloak boards to clear the supers this works really fast too if you spray a few extra squirt’s on the cloak board than what it says on the bottle.
Feed!! Great work! Loved the vid
Hi, Richard, thanks for the content, interesting to watch as always 💪
Talking about spring honey yield - it was some challenging weather for whole Europe bees so far, was it poor honey yield just around your location or do you hear/read complains from other beekeepers that are more far away from you too? Just interesting to see whole picture and check if it was quite bad almost everywhere (we can't do much about it, just need to wait for the main flow 👌).
It seems to be very widespread this year ...........here in Morbihan its very hard and hoping weather changes at end of week for brambles and cotoneaster etc
Where abouts in the country are you mate ? We have been ok here in Dorset
I am in North Brittany France, near ST Malo
No splits this Spring? lol only 10 days left and then its Summer 🙂
Colonies have no resources to do splits in most cases. Will make a load in the summer , hopefully by then some of them will have some resources ‘n😬🙄🐝💪🏻
How about excluder boards? These are my first choice.
Why not make splits? I get that your colonies are light, but you have a decent amount of pollen coming in so why not push the syrup to them and try to make bees?
its actually a good question, but firstly the feed i would need would be huge and the price isnt worth it, secondly i will make all my splits at the end of the season when the queens are being caged for brood breaks, i have a lot of colonies and hopefully the summer flow will give us the feed and resources we need. you cannot split starved bees without first having strong colonies. the effect on the colonies is huge. ps colonies arent light, they are dangerously light! thats the difference.
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