Tomorrow on the Apiary Wednesday 20th

On Wednesday commencing at around 10.00am we'll be combining the colony behind the new shed with the naughty bees (hive 8).  We'll also be making a start on organizing the sheds and work areas and we're giong to see a lady who lives near the "MacDonalds roundabout" on the London road about a "wild colony that has set up home in her roof, (I expect that'll be at about 3.00pm).

Barry

July 17th at the Dartford Festival

Today Colin, Jean, Mick and I are manning the Dartford Beekeepers stall in the main exhibition tent.  It's just as well that we're in the tent as it poured with rain yesterday and the skies are threatening us with more today.
Notwithstanding the "cats and dogs" we had a good day.  Visitors could sample our produce, Blackberry and Elderberry Mead, Colin's honey, Kevin's Honey cake and Lip balm.  Bill and Colin offered honey for sale and there was such a demand that Colin ran out! The Mead and Honey cake disappeared at a tremendous rate and proved to be especially  popular with the kids, (the cake that is).  By popular demand here's the Recipe -
6oz Honey
5 oz Butter
3 oz Light Muscavado sugar
2 eggs (beaten)
7 oz self raising flour
Heat the butter, Honey and sugar in a saucepan until it melts into a nice brown syrup and let it cool a little.
Mix in the flour and beaten eggs.
Pour the mixture into a buttered and lined 7" tin.
Bake at gas mark 3 for 40-45minutes.

Today on the Apiary and Parsnips and Bees

Today Bill, Colin and I collected the Bees from the hollow tree. Bill said he was taking them to one of our members Nigel who lives in Southfleet.  They are eventually destined for the garden of Nigel's Dad in Dartford but have to be temporarily stationed at least three miles from the hollow tree.
Throughout the day Colin and I , with some help from Kevin and Emmanuel, erected and roofed the shed given to us by Steve.  During the day I also hived the swarm that Colin and I collected last night.  They are housed in a Langstroth which has increased the variety of hives on site.  We now boast 6 Nationals and one each of Langstroth, Dartington, Kenyan Top Bar and Omlet Beehaus.
Tomorrow we visit Romford to collect a "wild colony" in a compost bin.
Stop press -  There's been a hitch, the "bin Bees" may have to wait until the weekend after next because the people are not able to make themselves available during the week.

Most gardeners dig all their Parsnips before they flower and then produce seed, but there are at least three good reasons to leave a couple of roots undisturbed.
For one you get large quantities (one plant will supply all your needs), of free seed which is of a much higher quality in terms of germination than much of the seed you buy.  I've found that if you allow a parsnip to spread it's seed freely they spring up everywhere but if you sow from a packet you're lucky to get every fourth or fifth seed to germinate and even then it's painfully slow.
Another good reason to cultivate seed is that the flowers are very handsome.  They're yellow, umbelliferate flowers, (a flat headed inflorescence), a bit like a yellow Achillea.
My last and I think, most persuasive reason for recommending a bit of "slack gardening" is that all manner of insects including bees are strongly attracted to the flowers and because they bloom early in the season they are especially valuable to all manner of wildlife.
Barry

Wild Bees.

The above title is a misnomer, more correctly I should call them unmanaged bees. Given a specific stimulus the Honey Bee's instincts will cause it to behave in exactly the same way whether it is living in a bespoke hive or a hollow tree.  They behave, apart from minor characteristics achieved through cross breeding of the various sub-species, just as they did before man arrived on the scene.  Anyway what I started out to say was that we have three "wild" colonies that we have not yet succeeded in bringing under our management.  One colony, readers may remember, was ensconced in a hollow tree in Dartford, another, in Abbeywood, was in a cavity wall 35'above ground and the third in an Elizabethan manor house.  Lessons learnt so far this season, (recovery of wild colonies using the porter bee escape method),  include :- Seal the collection box very very carefully because the bees are masters at finding a way back into their main nest and this can easily cause major delays.  Design the box so that the Porter bee escapes can be maintained (propolis cleaned off the springs) as you want the bees to be "drained off" the original nest eventually leaving too few workers to keep it going.  Make sure that the householder/ manager of the property will pay for any equipment such as extending ladders etc. as the bill will usually exceed the value of the bees, for instance the ladder we're using in Abbey wood costs about £40 a day and we've used it twice so far with one more visit required.  Something else you must take into consideration is making good, we had to remove a section of a plaster and lath wall to expose the comb inhabited by a colony in the Elizabethan manor house. Fortunately Colin has that particular skill but I had to point out to him that if he made too good a job of it it wouldn't look as if it had been there for the last 600 years. By-the-by I should also warn readers not to get Colin "started" about the standard of the recent repairs made to the Manor house lead plumbing!
Tomorrow (Wednesday) am. we'll be erecting the shed donated to the Apiary by Steve Clack and making a swarm comfortable with frames of foundation, possibly some drawn comb if we have any spare, and some food in the form of fondant. We'll be collecting this swarm after dusk tonight (Tuesday). In the evening we'll be bringing the colony from the hollow tree back to the Apiary.  At about 8.00 pm Bill, Colin and I will begin the operation and shortly after dusk the "capture box" will be sealed, wrapped and brought back to the Apiary.
Barry

Yesterday and tomorrow

Yesterday was brilliant, if you missed the Apiary meeting, you missed a real opportunity to watch an expert beekeeper, Alan Byham at work.  Everyone I spoke to afterwards said they had learnt something new.  Henceforth all my Bees, (and the Apiary Bees), will live on open mesh floors, I'll leave queen excluders off when installing a super containing only foundation until the comb is drawn, I'll reverse half drawn frames on the outside of the brood nest or move a full frame of stores outside an undrawn or partially drawn frame.  Alan imparted several other elegant tricks of the trade, much advice and also vital info on the management of Varroa.  Our thanks go to Alan and also to Colin for the impressive spread, sausage rolls, sandwiches, salad etc. and to Julie for running the drinks stall. Colin and I also cl;aim a pat on the back for getting the apiary ready to receive visitors and thanks of course to Bill Mundy for organising the whole thing All in all a day to remember.

Tomorrow we'll be on the apiary in the morning (around 10.00am) before visiting Colin's apiary to inspect his bees.  Colin has offered to provide a frame of brood for use at an Elizabethan mansion where we're recovering a wild colony, so that's the second port of call.  At 6.30pm, it's back to the apiary to show a group of visitors around and then at 8.00pm we'll be assisting a lady beekeeper from Southfleet to sort out a problem with her bees.
Busy, busy busy.
Barry

Latest- July 2011

Just a quick one- tomorrow we're inspecting all hives.  The Top Bar Hive is short of space, all combs are full sized and all have a lot of brood so we'll probably expand the brood chamber by about four bars and hopefully then they'll provide some combs with only honey in them. Foundations will also be installed for the new shed (given to the apiary by Steve), and Colin will be finishing off the perimeter fence both in the "Queen rearing area".

More tomorrow Barry