A frantic session with my attempt to be zen in the face of provocation.
00:03
Welcome back to a Beekeepers Diary podcast. Thanks for coming back for another episode. We are now on about 20 something of August. Probably 22nd, 23rd, something like that on the Sunday. Just completed my inspection. I tried to have a little look last week.
00:31
but one of the hives was quite grumpy so I thought sod that and went back home. We've probably completed all our honey harvesting for this year. I'm just watching a lovely flock of about 20 swallows flying ahead of me starting to group before their autumn migration. What a great sight. Yeah so I've completed the honey crop this year I think.
01:00
I've got about another 40 or so pounds in my food grade buckets in the kitchen waiting to be jarred. So that will probably be about 180 odd pounds from two hives this year, 90 pounds a hive, which isn't too bad.
01:22
Hopefully that I mean, I'm in profit this year, which is good. So it's good to go backwards, not forwards. I mean, other way around. You know what I mean?
01:34
Yeah, so honey crop wise it's been alright. I was previously extolling the virtues of these bees saying I've requeen them and they're lovely, but I've come back today and they are grumpy pants. I can only assume, I was worried last week, as my wife rightly pointed out, has happened.
01:57
autumn last year saying the bees are a bit grumpy, I don't know what's going on, then it turned out on reflection they were queenless. So she having learned that lesson and me not so much, she reminded me of that. So I've come back with that in mind and both colonies are queen right, although the brood has contracted massively and
02:24
didn't go all the way through the highs but the first few frames I've not seen eggs but they are queen right so they're obviously on a bit of a lay break at the moment possibly due to the dearth of everything going waiting for the ivy really yeah it's very dry in the highs but they have got stores I've left them both with stores there's both highs we've got two supers on actually
02:50
Hive 2 has got a full super and those Ross rounds that haven't taken off yet but they've got a full super above for food and the other hive has probably between those two supers they've got a full super of stores interspersed with empty frames and my plan was to take the empty frames out and reduce it down to one but the bees are so pissy I'm not gonna do it I don't need that in my life right now
03:19
I wasn't getting stung but you know when they're absolutely pinging the bejesus out of your veil so you can't even hear yourself think I'm gonna be zen, I'm gonna breathe, I'm gonna let them do their thing, I'm not getting stung, everything's alright but you know they're jumping on your hands all over the hive tall all in your veil so it gets very easy to squish bees and then that only makes things worse so
03:50
Having determined their queen right, they've got enough stores. Couldn't see any obvious disease in the brood that was there. I've packed them up, come back another day. I've ordered my, normally I'd have had my vario treatments on by now.
04:12
but it's been so hot and dry, it hasn't seemed the right thing to do right now. So I've ordered those treatments that I'm going to use. Apivir I think it is called, strips you put in for eight weeks and those will be arriving this week so I'll get that started on my next enjoyable visit.
04:35
what I might do with the two supers I need to split, might put the heaviest one underneath, which is what I generally do for winter. It's a bloody cat walking past. And leave the other one on top and then reduce that. Get them out of there with a entrance, one way entrance. I've forgotten the name of it. And then
05:05
I'll be able to feed from on top in a couple of weeks. Yeah, temperament zero, colony status five out of 10, TBC.
05:22
Hopefully they're just grumpy because of the dearth and they're protected, being defensive. They can sense autumn is approaching and they sense they need to defend their stores. So I understand. I think it's probably that. And the queen will be getting into gear for preparing to rear those winter bees.
05:44
I know what I'll do if there's not much laying going on in the next week or two. We shall see.
05:54
Right, hope all is good with you lot. Thank you for listening. My city count for cities that people are listening from is 306 or 305 now, which is ridiculous. So hello to all of you from all parts of the world that are listening in to my rambling. Hope you have a good week and I'll catch you in a bit.