Episode 8: Southern Migrant Hawker, nature watch and feeding chat. Time for a mindful moment at the end.

[00:00:00] Welcome back to A Beekeepers Diary. Standing in my usual spot in the field in Hertfordshire, straight into nature watch. There's a hawker dragonfly flying overhead. There's a reasonable chance it's predating my bees as it's flying around. I've not seen one here before.

[00:00:26] There is a body of water maybe 100 meters away. Whoa! Flew right over my head there. I wish I was better at identifying them, but as I'm looking in the sky, two swallows. I had not expected to see that. Two swallows flying overhead. I think they're just passing over. No, make that three. Gosh. It's October the 5th and they're still knocking about.

[00:00:58] Isn't that amazing? And I can hear a Great Spotted Woodpecker alarm calling to the left of me. I don't know if you can catch that. Wow! So that's a sudden burst of activity. Three swallows. A hawker dragonfly, yet to be identified. The bluey green one. The big boy. Great Spotted Woodpecker. I've been hearing wagtails flying overhead as well. So quite pleasant really standing here. If you just stand still and let things pass you by.

[00:01:31] You can probably hear the M25 in the background as well. You can probably hear the M25 in the background as well.

[00:01:38] We're trying to find ways to reduce the sound of that in the podcast, but it seems to disrupt my voice too much.

[00:01:47] I'm sure there's some fancy gizmo out there that could help lower it, but I guess it just shows where we're at in the world just within the M25.

[00:01:58] Which is a circular motorway, if you're not from the UK, that goes around the outskirts of Greater London in a big circle and causes people a nightmarish hell on their commute to work.

[00:02:11] We're going to Heathrow Airport. Oh, and I've got a red kite in the background as well, quartering low over the fields.

[00:02:22] Looking for a carrion to pick at. Famously weak feet, so it's not going to snatch anything out of the air or off the ground unless it's extremely small or an insect.

[00:02:34] Anyway, enough waffling about nature. Back to the bees. I'm looking at my two hives. Very active today.

[00:02:42] Lots of yellow pollen coming in and the general smell of it lets me know that they've found the ivy that's in flower.

[00:02:53] Hive 2, very heavy now. I brought quite a lot of syrup with me today and I didn't really give them any.

[00:03:05] They're pretty heavy. The other hive needed the majority of it, so I've absolutely given them about seven or eight kilos.

[00:03:15] I've filled up their feeder as much as I can do it, basically.

[00:03:22] And the straw that I put in last week. It's worked well. They've obviously taken it and they're clambering around in the straw having fun.

[00:03:31] But it did make it a bit tricky when I went to refill in that the bees were all over the straw and they didn't get out.

[00:03:38] Some of them didn't get out of the way quick enough as the syrup tide flowed across the box.

[00:03:45] So I had to do quite a lot of bee rescuing of those that had had a little swim.

[00:03:50] But there were no casualties. Just a few bees that are going to have to go and get cleaned up by their hive colleagues.

[00:04:04] So I'm going to stick with it this year. Maybe not next year. Seems a bit, it's a bit of a faff and harder to fill, I must say.

[00:04:11] But they have been, they have emptied it and seem to take it down. So not sure.

[00:04:17] I'm undecided on that one at the moment.

[00:04:21] Yeah, so the bees are nice and active. It's 16 degrees today.

[00:04:24] So still nice and warm enough for them to take down the syrup and be able to evaporate it and store it.

[00:04:30] So there's no worries there. So I think we're going to be fine for stores going into winter.

[00:04:39] Yeah. Looking forwards, I'm still yet to put my woodpecker, green woodpecker defenses up.

[00:04:46] And typically later in the winter when it gets properly cold, I put some Sellatex bonnets over my hive as well for insulation.

[00:04:56] To keep them nice and toasty and not have to waste energy keeping themselves warm.

[00:05:03] My bees generally don't cluster unless it's very, very cold.

[00:05:08] I don't have the, I don't have a solid floor. I've got a mesh floor that I keep open all year round.

[00:05:12] Other than when I'm doing Varroa treatment. A little curious bee there.

[00:05:20] So I put the bonnet on and they don't really cluster. They just potter about, they don't fly.

[00:05:24] And they typically don't really use too much stores.

[00:05:27] I normally have more leftover that I need to remove in the spring.

[00:05:32] So I'm yet to do that. It's not really cold enough yet. It's 16 degrees.

[00:05:35] So it's going to be a few weeks before I need to start thinking about that.

[00:05:44] Typically at this time of year as well, it's a lovely time that you don't really get time during the fall season.

[00:05:51] It's too frantic. But at this time of year, I can just sit and chill with my bees.

[00:05:56] Listen to the wind and the vibe of happy bees out foraging.

[00:06:05] So I'm going to do that once I turn this off.

[00:06:07] I'm just going to have a little mindful minute with my bees and listen,

[00:06:10] enjoy the sound of contented honey bees on the 5th of October, 2024.

[00:06:17] Enjoying a sunny 16 degrees. Catch you next time.

[00:06:23] Let's go.