We will be inspecting all the colonies on site with the exception of Colin's feral colony. Winter is approaching and we're interested to see which may not be strong enough to survive on their own and which do or don't have plenty of stores. We recently combined the feral colonies from Franks Hall and Abbey Wood. We removed and marked the Queen from the Abbey Wood colony and placed her along with a cupful of workers in a polystyrene mini nuc. With a constant supply of one of the proprietary feeding syrups we hope to bring them through the winter. No one I've spoken to has tried this and researching the internet has not given us anything positive to go on except that several people conjecture that it's not the cold but lack of accessible food that causes colonies to die out. What have we got to lose? I'm hoping to use Api life Var thymol based varroa treatment on all the bees this year sometime in the middle of September.
Barry
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