British Lime Trees, nectar producing now!

Well the honey season is truly under way and its been a delightful surprise. The warm weather has been a big help and our honey boxes are filling up very quickly. The reports from other beekeepers throughout the country are the same. So this year should help to make up for the dreadful past three years. The Lime trees are in full blossom so we expect a good yield of lime (linden blossom) honey this year. We have extracted some beautiful spring/early summer honey that consists of blackberry, hawthorn, field bean & wildflowers. It is such a lovely scented, medium light honey. It was a fine catch!



photo copyright 2009 ©-The Hive Honey Shop

5 Steps to Stop Bees Swarming

Aside from losing your valuable bees it could cause a nuisance to your neighbors. So be a responsible beekeeper. Here are a few tips.

1. Clip one wing of your queen.

Simply clip off half of one wing of your queen bee. She will not feel a thing. Its like clipping a finger nail. The queen will be unable to fly and when your bees decide to swarm and take her with them, she will drop to the front of the hive and can be found and put back or she will crawl up the leg of your hive stand and re-enter the hive (see photo). Your bees will swarm away for a small time and when they are unable to find her, they will all swarm back to their hive. You don't lose your bees or have to climb over fences to retrieve them. This also buys you some time to sort out queen cells, add super for space etc.

2. Add space!

When a colony of bees becomes over crowded, the queen pheromone ( her scent) can not be detected by the workers in parts of the hive, hence they believe she is gone and start making queen cells to replace her even though she is still there. So to reduce the risk of this happening give your bees plenty of room BEFORE they need it. Add supers in advance of their needs.

3. Requeen

If you have a queen that is two years or older think about requeening if your bees keep attempting to swarm. It could be that your queen was not properly mated and the workers detect this and are logically insuring the future survival of the colony by replacing her. It could be that your queen is getting too old and as a result her queen pheromone is drying up. The workers can't smell her and think she is not there.

4. Shook swarm technique

This should only be done once you have found your queen, put her safely in a queen cage, then in your pocket. The idea is to work with your bees and their natural instinct to swarm outside the hive. Once queen cells are in place this can sometimes be a point of no return and your bees will swarm regardless. If you have removed all the queen cells and you now believe that this will stop your bees from swarming-you are wrong. Your bees don't recognise that you have removed all the queen cells, they believe that all is well for a successful swarm. They believe that they have left the colony with a future queen and the ability to carry on. So within the next few days, mid day, off they go. You however have destroyed all the queen cells and now the colony is compromised. Yes your workers can begin to make new queen cells from the remaining eggs, but there will be a break in the brood pattern which could have been avoided. (there is more to beekeeping than meets the eye!) So here's what we do!

On a nice sunny, calm day, queen safely in her cage, in your pocket. Remove one brood frame at a time and SHAKE all the bees off the frame in front of the hive. Do this until all the bees have been shaken off each frame. Remove ALL queen cells you see. This is a perfect opportunity to check for queen cells as all bees are off the comb and you can clearly see the entire surface. Use this time to clean the frame or even replace a frame if the comb is old. Put them back in order of how you took them out. Once complete, all frames back in place, release your queen back into the brood box by letting her crawl out of the cage onto the top of the brood frames. She will crawl down between the frames. Don't shake her out of the cage, you could flip her outside the hive. I have seen it done. Close up the hive.

Your bees now feel that they did in fact swarm which was on the cards. You have triggered that response within a controlled environment. This technique works quite well. Remember bees have a mind of their own and even the best laid plans do not always work. This is what makes beekeeping an interesting challenge. If you find you have tried this three times and they still will not stop preparing to swarm try no five.

5. Divide a colony

If you have tried nos 1-4 and your bees keep building up in size and there is no way to stop them making queen cells think about dividing the hive. This entails removing half the frames to a new empty hive in a new location. You will leave half the viable brood frames and two queen cells only in the original position. Next you will take the other half of the viable brood frames to the new empty hive WITH THE QUEEN! The idea is that you have worked with the bees natural instinct to swarm. By removing half the bees and frames with the original queen to a new location you have produced the scenario of them swarming. Only you are in control! You have decided when and where. The original hive now has less bees and two queen cells. They are happy in the knowledge that all is well and their colony has swarmed as planned. In the next seven days a queen will emerge and head that colony. You now have two hives and two decisions. You can keep both going or reunite them back to one hive after deciding which queen you will keep. You will need to remove one queen or they will fight, injuring each other of causing the new queen to fly out of the hive (swarming) taking half the bees with her, which was what we were trying to avoid.

So there are a few tips for you to add to your ever growing beekeeping knowledge base. Give it a try, tailor it to your needs. remember beekeeping still is not an exact science. Bees are wild creatures and will continue to surprise us. Keep an eye on this site, we will always be posting useful tips throughout the year. Any questions post a comment and we will try to respond. Have fun!

photo copyright 2009 ©-The Hive Honey Shop

Feed Those Bees!!

Swarming season is truly underway. We have collected quite a number. The key to success is FEEDING. A newly developing colony needs a surplus of food to convert into beeswax and honey. If they have a continuous supply then the workers will feed the queen who will in turn increase her egg laying. So you get a faster, stronger developing colony who are able to draw out all your new foundation.

A simple feeder bucket can be used. Mix a solution of 1 kilo of CANE sugar only and 1 pint of water. Make up about 20 liters. If you don't use it now, you'll need it at the end of the season for their winter feed, around Aug-Sept. time. The sugar solution will keep for over a year. Mix until crystal clear. Invert the filled bucket over the holes in the crownboard. Careful not to drip! Wasps will smell it and you will point them to your swarm. They will kill your bees.

Use an empty broodbox or super to hide your bucket. The roof will then fit neatly on top and be stable. Don't just balance the roof on the bucket. The first good wind will blow it off. Also rain and insects will find their way inside. Feed your swarm until they have drawn out the foundation and have filled 70% of the frames with food stores. Then its time to remove the feeder and put your queen excluder on and supers.

This I will show you shortly so watch this space!

photo copyright 2009 ©-The Hive Honey Shop

Swarms of Bees are about!

Wow, last week was full of calls for picking up swarms. Best swarm activity in years! Around 11am on Monday in Tooting I was about to get in my car when I heard a loud roar overhead. I thought to myself, that sounds like a swarm of bees? I looked up and there was a prime swarm of bees in flight passing among the chimney breasts of the Victorian terraced houses. I jumped in my car and gave chase, but lost them a few streets away.

The next few days we were busy collecting swarms here and there, but mainly in SW London. Now is the time to super up your hives. Give the bees plenty of room to reduce the chance of swarming.

We have also been busy doing divides. This means we look at colonies that are very strong and showing signs of wanting to swarm, producing queen cells, over populated. We leave the queen and five frames of sealed brood behind in the original hive position. We take the other remaining frames and put them in an empty hive, add the remaining frames of foundation and remove all but two queen cells. BINGO you have the makings of a new colony. Once the queen hatches and starts laying this will grow in size and if they too expand quickly, produce queen cells, you can divide them.

Feed all new divides (nucs) to encourage the queen to lay and the bees to draw out the wax foundation.

photo copyright 2009 ©-The Hive Honey Shop

Little Pollen Traps Work a Treat!

Well the pollen is going in fast and thick. We have tried a new kind of pollen trap, one that attaches to the front of the hive entrance. Its quick to attach and remove and the bees fill it up quite quickly. The photos show it in action. The tray was filled within one day.

photo copyright 2009 ©-The Hive Honey Shop

Repairing a Bee Feeder

  
If you put off fixing old tired bee feeders, your not alone! I get caught out too. I have a list of beekeeping repairs to do and the list gets bigger and bigger. So the pile of feeders I was looking at repairing last spring are now needed and I am slapping myself on the wrist!- should have done this earlier James.

So here's a few tips on bringing your old feeders back to life and what to avoid when buying a new feeder. I bought many Miller feeders (a central access for the bees with 2 filling chambers) Not a great design. Some say this is better because your bees will find the syrup easier via the central entrance, as apposed to the Ashford feeder with only an access for the bees at the extreme side of the feeder. Nonsense-bees will find it no matter.

I love the Ashford feeder (photo 3) as there is only one big filling chamber making it easy to fill and more importantly to empty. The Miller as illustrated in photos 1&2 above have two chambers and when you try to empty it, the syrup runs over the central access for the bees and you end up spilling quite a bit. Seewww.beesource.com/plans/mrfeeder.pdf

Also the Ashford feeder is simply built better. The wood used to wall off the syrup is not plywood, but 8mm solid pine and lasts longer. Hence you may not need to do the repairs I am about to explain!

The plywood walls of wood that separate the bees from the open filling chamber will rot and the ply will separate it time due to the on going exposure to moisture from the sugar syrup. So do not toss your feeder away, it can be fixed and serve you for many years to come.

First gently remove the old plywood dividers and use one as a template to create an exact copy. I bought a 4ft x 3 ft 6mm plywood board from Wicks for £5.00 ( Homebase wanted £9.95!) I was able to get 20 dividers from that. If you only need to repair one or two feeders you can use the rest of the wood to make a coverboard, roof  liner etc. Have a look at my first photo, this shows the tools needed to do the job.

Now all the suppliers of feeders seem to supply a central GLASS panel piece to view the bees, Miller or Ashford. This will always break in time. Dumb design fault. I break them by accident when I am cleaning them, using my hive tool, trying to remove it, set something on it, it falls out and breaks... Why do they not use perspex! So in time I am forced to replace them myself with perspex that then lasts forever. Photo 2, shows cutting new viewing windows. The trick to cutting perspex is to use a Stanley knife and score the perspex several times, cutting deeper each time. Then lay it on the very edge of a table that has a Sharp corner. Use a fully supported downward force to snap the plastic. Do not attempt to saw the sheet-it will break everywhere but where you want it to. Once you get the confidence its easy.

I use a flame torch to clean and sterilise the wood before each feed. I paint the inner chambers in December. This gives me 4 months for the paint to dry and fumes to clear before I use them for a spring feed if necessary.

So get to it if you haven't already!

photo copyright 2008 ©-The Hive Honey Shop

Honey Harvest Time.

This is one of the last of my annual harvests. I did manage to get a bit of spring honey. The city sites in and around Wandsworth produced well. I can always count on my city sites each year as there is an abundance of nectar producing flowers in the city and the temperature is warmer and more consistent.

Just a few tips about extracting honey and hygiene: keep your extracting room spotlessly clean! I stack my supers on the trailer and before bringing them into the extracting room, wipe them down on the outside with a mild disinfectant and rinse with clean water. It's just nice to know that no mud, grass, twigs or bees will be brought into the building. Health & Hygiene laws set out useful information to follow when designing your extraction room. 

A modern kitchen will in most cases do. The basic requirements are wipeable walls and  floors. The ceiling should be clear and free of dust collecting items. Hot and cold water supply. Your extractor should be stainless steel, not the basic metal ones of days gone by. They are nice to look at, but as honey is corrosive and reacts to metal-not a safe idea. Food grade plastic has replaced metal for that very reason.

Now lets talk about Ripe Honey! I have a vast private collection of honey from all over the world and I am amazed at how many on offer for sale have fermented in the jar. If the lid is slightly convex (bowed) its a sign that there is a build up of internal pressure in the jar. If the water content in honey exceeds 20% there is a good chance that the shelf life of that honey will be greatly reduced and natural fermentation will occur. The honey is spoilt.

So to avoid this, here are few tips.

1- If the frame of honey is predominately uncapped, it might be a sign your bees have not driven out the water from the nectar yet. Bees are remarkable little creatures and if left to their own devices they will 'ripen' the honey by removing a vast amount of the water contained in the nectar, reducing it to around 20-18% water. The lower the percentage of water the better. Shake the frame of honey downwards if any nectar falls out, the honey is not ready to extract.

2- Buy a refractometer

This is a simple little telescope like device. It has a flip lid and you simply put a drop of honey on the inside of the flap. Look through the lens which has level lines showing 1-60%. It measures the water in the liquid. Quick and very accurate. 

3- Wash and DRY all jars. You don't want to contaminate your perfect honey with water at this point.

Filtering your honey.

There is a lot of controversy over this issue. At present the EU are setting new guideline laws in respect to the filtering of honey. They want to see producers label their honey with, ' Filtered Honey' if they use a fine filtering system. The idea is that consumers should be made aware of this fact, as fine filtering does filter out a considerable amount of the nutritional value of the honey. Fine filtering consists of heating the honey, pumping it under high pressure through a micro mesh filter system. Most hobbyist beekeepers will never have to worry. Like you, we use a gravity system using muslin cloth of a wide grade. It allows trace elements of pollen and propolis through, which most consumers will want and appreciate.

Filtering also ensures there will not be any surprises in your honey. Your honey should be clear of wax and foam bubbles. To avoid the foam ( air bubbles trapped in the honey during the extraction process) decanter the freshly extracted honey into a large food grade bucket. Allow this to stand for 48 hrs before bottling. All the trapped air bubbles will rise to the top of the bucket. Your tap is located at the bottom, so all the honey that comes out will be free of bubbles and crystal clear!

Store any jars of honey out of direct sunlight. Its funny how many times I see shops displaying their honeys in the windows of their shop. It looks great but UV sunlight ruins honey and should not be sold thereafter. Avoid this please. 

This should be enough for now. I'll tell you more about the storage of supers, feeding and closing your hives down for the year next! Let me know what you have collected this year and how your bees are!

photo copyright 2008 ©-The Hive Honey Shop