Colin and I have a few hives in Barnehurst, 10 minutes by
bike from my home. Today (20Feb) they received the Oxalic acid anti-Varroa
treatment and, touch wood , they were all in reasonable nick as far as I could
tell. The feral colony that had set up home in a tree on site, see my blog for
17th Dec 2012, is not easily accessible and will have to wait until I shake them onto new comb in the spring. I mention this because the accepted wisdom in beekeeping circles is to treat late in the year or in January. The theory being to treat r6when no brood is present, so I should at least be ok from that angle.
Every morning I feed the birds on the Apiary with seed and
fat-balls. On Wednesday I visited the Apiary twice in one day and within 4
hours the substantial helping of seed placed on the bird table was almost all
gone! I suspect the two turtle doves which are always the first on the scene.
Does anyone know of a method/ contraption which would allow smaller birds to
get a share of the goodies?
Forgive me for “rattling on” about the subject again but as
you probably know there is a strong possibility of the Asian Hornet becoming a
problem in the south east in the near future. As I have also mentioned before
on this blog if you capture the Queen early in the year before she has fully
established her nest you may have prevented a major infestation and you will
have delayed the colonization of Kent by the Vespa velutina nigrithorax
(Hornet). Anyway I intend to make up a few traps for the Bedonwell Apiary and
for my apiary at Barnehurst and I recommend the idea to all Beekeepers, who
knows if you’re “lucky” you may have the dubious claim to fame – “the first Beekeeper
to capture the invader in the UK”. Below is a photo that I took in Nepal of the
hornet carving out a chunk of goat meat for her offspring and a video showing
how she hovers under the entrance of a hive in order to pounce on returning
foragers. This link will take you to an authoritative article on the Hornet by FERA. https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/index.cfm?pageId=208
The video declines to be uploaded to the blog, I keep getting an error message, so I'll upload it to You-Tube and I'll post a link on my next post.
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