Honey Harvesting

Yesterday for the first time since 2008, we actually harvested our own honey.

Frames of honey, honey extractor all ready

In 2009, we had an attack of mice which destroyed the hives. (Mouseguards not on.) We acquired another hive BUT the cold winter was no good for them. Then 2011 had a cold Spring and 2012 was another cold Spring. I had nearly given up when we decided one last time in 2014 and got some bees. We didn't take off any honey.
BUT this year, we have honey! Hooray. About 40 lbs worth.
I put the Porter bee escapes on on Friday to clear the supers where the honey is stored. Then early, early on Saturday morning before the bees were up, I  went out and retrieved the supers.
One or two bees remained in the supers and were easily brushed off.
At that time in the morning, the bees are not flying. This makes it so much easier and likelihood of getting stung is much decreased.
Then I set up the honey extractor -- which is hand cranked. The wax cappings are taken off to reveal the honey and the frame is put in the extractor. Then the frames are spun round and round. Centrifugal force gets the honey out.

Honey from the extractor pours into the filter

It works well except if there is a high proportion of heather honey. Heather honey is like jelly and very hard to extract. The best way I have found is to crush the frames and melt them -- releasing the honey. The honey melts at a lower temp than the wax. Thankfully though my youngest son has strong arms and the honey was all spun out.
This year's honey is relatively pale. Heather honey also tends to be more amber/caramel in colour. I suspect there is fuchsia. I know there is thistle in there. It tastes absolutely wonderful.
After being extracted, the honey gets filtered to get rid of the wax/dead bees etc. I also put the cappings in and allow them to drain.
Once filtered the honey is bottled.

Heathcliff inspects the jars of honey

Other than bottling  a couple of bottles for my youngest son to take back to uni with him, I am just waiting for the honey to drip through.
The spun supers are put back on the hives so that the bees can clean them out. The bees hate wasting any honey. They will clean everything. It is sort of amazing.
The bees still have time to forage and rebuild their stores. I will give them some Apiguard as a tonic/guard against varroa. And then they will be shut up for the winter.
In Feb time they will be fed on fondant and the cycle will be gin again.

Foxes and bees

The trouble with late night party ducks is that unlike sensible chickens, they like to stay out late. They also quack, alerting any fox in the neighbourhood who then decides to drop into the party...unvited. We unfortunately had a visit from arather large dog fox the other day. The upshot was the very pretty white duck who had unwisely decided to make a nest in the bee garden was eaten, along with her eggs.
We are now down to 11 ducks. The little brown duck who has successfully reared ducklings in the past and is a Good Mother has started a nest close to the greenhouse. Given how often the dogs and people walk along that path, I would be surprised if the fox bothered her.

The bees have been a problem this Spring. At first they seemed to be doing well but were a small colony. Then in the cold April, they appeared to have subcumbed to a bee virus. Small colonies can have this problem. Because of the cold and damp we had not given the usual Spring tonic of apiguard. They were varroa free last autumn when inspected by the Bee Inspector. My son had treated for vrroa just in case in the autumn.
My youngest swore there were no bees left or maybe a small cluster which wasn't viable as he could not find the queen and there was no brood.
I duly ordered a Buckfast queen and her courtiers from Fragile Plant (to arrive early July). My youngest wanted it for his birthday and for a long time both my husband and I have hankered after a Buckfast strain of bees. Buckfast bees were originally bread by Brother Adam, one of the huge star of late 20th century British beekeeping. Besides the garden feels better with bees.
Because of the fox incident, I decided to clean up the bee garden as we no longer had bees. When bees are in reisdence, it is always a very quick in and out as I dislike getting stung.  The first day, I noticed one or two but my son swore they were the last remenants. Indeed a day or so later I was able to weed stright up to the hive and was a bit sad as the garden doesn't seem right.
On Friday, I decided to do a bit more weeding. Two bees flew warningly over my head, coming straight from what I presumed was an empty hive. Scouts Guard bees? I beat a hasty retreat. You can by the sound of the buzz what is happening with the bees.
My son swore that there could not be bees there and perhaps it had been some other colony robbing the hive. Because of his exams, he had not gotten around to cleaning up the hive and taking it away.
I went out on Saturday morning. Many more bees and much activity. I stood and watched for awhile, the bees appeared to be taking pollen in. My son swore I was seeing things and even when robbing bees will sometimes have pollen on their legs. Late that evening a few bees remained, guarding the entrance way.
On Sunday, more bees behaving precisely like bees behave around their hive. The bees are a bit lighter in colour than our old bees and the weather has been perfect for swarming. I suspect we have had a swarm take up residence in the empty hive. Because it is May, it will be a large swarm.
Fingers crossed that the bees don't catch the same virus and that they stay.
I also have the Buckfast queen and her courtiers to look forward to in early July.
It is just good to have bees in the garden but the bee garden will remain half weeded!

The Bees and the garden

I haven't updated on my bees recently.
The hive survived the winter. Hooray. I am not sure what happened in March when we had a few good days. Anyway, it would seem like we now have a new queen and the colony is building. My youngest paniced a bit when he couldn't see the queen in mid April but reported that there is now a healthy amount of brood. Because it is a small colony, I had him put in an entrance block -- this makes it easier for the bees to defend the hive against intruders, including mice.
The big problem is the cold and rain. Wettest April for 100 years and May seems now better. However there are plenty of flowers out in the garden....when they can fly. Bees don't fly in the rain.
One of the big problems for bees can be when gardens become green deserts -- few flowering plants and lots of evergreen or grass. Bees need flowers.
Speaking of flowers, I was really pleased to discover a trillium in the winter garden. We had planted trillium bulbs years ago but nothing happpened. Then suddenly this year, we have 3 delicate flowers. Patience can be a virtue in gardening.
The apple blossom is almost out in back paddock. This morning a male and female bullfinch were busy snacking on the blossom. They missed the damson blossom but they are endangered so I can't get cross about the apple blossom. Plus they were snacking on the tree which had a lot of apples last year.

Update on reshaping my writer's bottom and bees

The big news is that a nucleus of bees arrived yesterday. Long time readers of this blog will remember when beekeeping came easy. Then there was the attack of the mice in 2009 and starvation and frozen bees at the beginning of 2010.  A fellow beekeeper knew he normally gets swarms and offered to capture one for us, if we'd supply the hive. A few weeks ago, he captured the swarm and put it into the hive we provided. He then allowed them to expand. Yesterday, he stuffed cotton wool/sheep fleece in the entrance and drove the hive over here. A very brave man is Mr L.
 The bees have a feeder full of 50/50 water and sugar. My only fear is that the wonderful Mr L doesn't live far enough away and the worker bees will fly back to his hive, leaving the nurse bees and larvae behind. This happened when we first got bees. Starvation is never pretty and I learnt my lesson -- always feed for the first few weeks.
The recent cold weather is not doing the bees any good. Mr L was going back to feed his own bees as they had eaten up their stores because of the cold weather. When it rains, bees don't fly.Plus there is often a drought of good nectar plants in June.
My youngest is now in charge of the bees. He says that I am not to do anything because of my lymphoedemia and the potential for getting stung. There is a suspicion that a bee sting or three might have contributed to the problem initially. I will be good.
In my efforts to reshape my bottom, I have started doing the 10 minute solution Perfect Pilates. I did 5 days of their total body blast off which was excellent and had never attempted Pilates before. The fact that Pippa Middleton did pilates gave me the push. Pilates is not easy but it is less intense..in some ways. It takes loads of concentration because it is all about form. As the days went by and I began to understand more what I was supposed to do, and therefore I could work harder. I did like the fact that there was no jumping. And the back of my legs were sore so I was definitely using differnet muscles. Tomorrow means the start of the 10 min belly fat blast off dvd for 5 days. This was the first 10 min solution dvd I tried and focuses heavily on the core. I enjoyed it the first time I went through it. 50 minutes of intense abs work.
The key with this is persistence and working out every single day.
Special mention should be made of my bee suit. the last time I had it on, it was snug about the beam as it were. This time, it looked like I had borrowed a suit that was three sizes too big and I was completely swamped! My son says that as I shall not be wearing the suit that often, this is not a problem.

beekeeping redux

We will be getting more bees. My husband and youngest want to. They have promised to do everything. It is all fine as long as I do not get stung. I did have a long talk with the physio about it.

I went to the Hexham Beekeepers meeting yesterday where the guest speaker was Northern England's chief bee inspector. It was a thoroughly interesting evening. Last year's colony was too small, and got too cold. Also the entrance way got blocked with dead bees and they could not get out. His message was -- if you think is amiss, check. You can clear varroa floors etc in the dead of winter with you put on Oxalic acid. But basically if your colony is less that 8 frames and it is a hard winter, they are going to have a hard time surviving. Spring management is all about winter preparation.

1. Complete Colony Collaspe seems to have been caused by Deformed Wing Virus. It is a virus that comes after severe varroa mite infestation. Basically the products beekeepers (namely Apistan) have been are not working and other things need to be used. Foremost is Apiguard or thymol. There is a new product called Api-lite-var which if used properly also works. But must not be placed over the brood as it kills. It goes in the corner of the hive. But it is temperature dependant.

2. Scotland which does not have regular inspectors is in the grip of Europeon Foulbrood. It has worrying implications for Northern England beekeepers and bees. The English inspectorate is training. There is also a worrying increase in nosema.

3. American Foulbrood and other diseases can be caused by people feeding honey to bees. For example put honey purchased in a supermarket out in a wasp trap. Or leaving a jar out. Some farmers feed out of date honey to livestock. It can carry spores.

4. I also learnt how to tell if a colony is about to swarm -- an egg in a Queen cup along with an increase in drone brood. Without drones, the colony will not swarm as they cannot count on drones from other colonies. Because cutting out drone brood is a remedy for varroa, there is a question if too much has been cut... Anyway all remedies start with first catch your Queen. Finding the Queen can be a problem as I well know!

5. Hygiene, hygiene, hygiene. Have a bucket with washing soda and water for washing tools. Fumigate unused brood boxes etc with acetic acid. Do the checks for varroa.

So eventually bees will be in the garden again. But I reccomend people becoming involved with their local beekeeping association.

Bees and the puppies

Yesterday Tess & Hardy were very naughty and ran into the bee garden, straight in front of the bee hive. I remained on the edge of the area, hoping that nothing untoward would happen as I had no wish to play chase the puppy in front of the bee hive. Unfortunately they both got far too close. There was much yelping and whimpering as both emerged with a few bees clinging to their fur. I cleaned Tess off, getting stung on the ankles. I am not sure if she was stung The bees had obviously decided the puppies were the target. Hardy went the wrong way and went back in the bee garden, before coming out again and running for the house. He was definitely stung.
They are both fine with no ill effects. Although Hardy has decided that buzzing insects should now be avoided...
The bees appear to have recovered as well. They had eaten all the sugar syrup and are busily drawing out the new comb. I have put a queen excluder on and a super, just in case they should decide to lay down some honey.

I am blogging today at Totebags about the new RWA readership survey. It makes for interesting reading if you happen to be interested in the make up of the readership and what they use to read. For example only 5.4% have read an e-book, and only half of those use a dedicated e book reader. But I would imagine that it is 500% increase from the number who read them in 2005. It all depends on how you look at the statistics.

Simple things

I went to the meeting of the Hexham Beekeepers yesterday. There will be bees in my future. The man who hosted the meeting has twenty hives and queen rearing is in full swing. I was so impressed with his bees -- very well behaved and non agressive, plus his own beekeeping skills. He was able to quickly demonstrate how to create an artificial swarm.
But it was the hum of bees, the smell of the honey and just the general being around the hives. Sheer bliss. I would urge anyone interested in beekeeping to attend the meetings of their local beekeeping association. With the apiary meetings, they do have extra suits for people to wear.
He is going to make up a nucleus -- this year's queen and several frames of brood for me. It should be ready in a few weeks.

I have put more puppy pictures on the blog as my sister informs that the pictures I sent her took far too long to download and my nieces enjoyed looking at the puppies. My youngest neice takes a keen interest in my family's pets even though she has never been to the UK.

Things to help bees

Yesterday, a neighbour phoned, concerned that he had not seen any honey bees in his garden. I had to explain about my earlier bee murdering disaster and my hopes of getting a new colony. Somehow I don't think he was mollified. Apparently he is worried about his damson crop...

So what can people do to help the honey bee? The British Bee Keeping Association has a list of 10 things the general public can do.

1. Write to your MP or MEP to lobby for more funds for bee research. We really do not understand enough about bees and what makes them ill.

2. Plant bee friendly plants. This is important. Grass and evergreens are not bee friendly. Certain repeat flowering plants are not bee friendly. The BBKA does have a list on its website but flowers like foxgloves, herbs including mint and thyme, fuchsia, asters, sunflowers, daisies, hollyhocks and delphiniums are all loved by bees. In many ways with the problems of agricultural pesticides, gardens area haven for bees.

3. Join your local beekeeping association. They do run courses for beginners. They are friendly and welcome new people.

4. Find space for beehives. Even if you do not want to look after bees yourself, you might be able to have space for a hive. Some beekeepers need sites. The benefit for you is well pollinated crops and perhaps several jars of honey. Sited right, a beehive does not bother its neighbours. Contact your local beekeeping association.

5. Buy local honey. Local honey has lots of good properties including not being ultra heat treated so it is helpful for colds and allergies. If you are not sure where you can buy local honey, contact your local beekeeping association. Local honey tastes far richer than the mass produced stuff you buy at the supermarket.

6. Do not keep unwashed honey jars outside the backdoor. First of all it attracts wasps but more importantly, foreign honey can contain bacteria and spores that may be harmful to your local bees. The bees as well as the wasps will try to eat the remaining honey.

7. When encountering bees, be bee friendly. Do not flap your hands or run. Stay calm. Walk slowly away and go into the shade of a tree or shed. They sting because they are frightened for the hive.

8. Protect swarms. Call your local council to get the number of someone to deal with them. swarms are important. Generally they are not aggressive as they have fed on lots of honey. But if you disturb -- say spray them with water they get irritated. So leave them alone and call an expert.

9. Encourage your local authority to plant bee friendly plants. Parks, verges and other public areas can be a real haven for bees. Wildflowers such as rosebay willowherb can provide lots of honey. Evergreen plants and grass can't.

10. Learn more about bees. Contact your local beekeeping association. There are beekeepers ready and willing to talk to all ages and manner of groups. Generally they have an observation hive for schoolchildren.

The loss of bees is a very real problem but little things can help to make a difference.

cleaning up the bee garden

As a consequence of the demise of the bees, I have been cleaning up the bee garden. Normally because the bees don't like anyone within their beeline, I tend to clean quickly and get out once I start getting buzzed. However, it is now a chance to do a clean up after nearly a decade of beekeeping. All was going well until I took a backward step, heard crunch and squish and realised I had stepped into an undiscovered duck nest. Luckily it was full of fresh duck eggs. The pong from rotten eggs is truly stomach churning!

Our cat, Tuppence has a liver problem, I think. She has lost tons of weight, is very cold etc. She does not seem to be in any great pain, but it is a matter of weeks. I am hesitating taking her to the vet as I know what will happen. I would just like her to get through until April... It is selfish but if her quality of life totally went, I wouldn't hesitate. She still seems to be very hungry. Penny the other cat is doing fine on her metacam. They are both 17.

The high school is having a charity day at the end of April with historical figures being the theme. My daughter has convinced me that I need to make her a Regency dress. Butterick Pattern 6630 has duly arrived in the post. She had wanted a mid Victorian dress but I did point out that she would have to have the proper under pinnings. With Regency dress, the stays were not to cinch the wait but to lift up the bosom to a shelf life proportion. I do enjoy making costumes so it will be a challenge. The boys are busy working out their costumes. The plague doctor mask has been ruled out.

Beehive disaster

Both of my beehives are gone. Mice got in and ate the honey. The bees starved. It is all my fault.
There are reasons why you leave on mouseguards...
I think I can get a new colony in a few weeks, but doubt that I will be harvesting honey this year.

Spring cleaning bees and bats

Yesterday, my husband deemed the time was right to change the floors in the beehives. Because we use varroa floors (basically wire mesh) to help control the varroa mite, they do have to be cleaned as the bees can not do it.
Normally I try to get my husband to do the job... Grumpy bees and all that. However, I also wanted to discover about the possibility of mice. Far better for me to do it as it would have been my fault....

The bees were sluggish until I moved the hive and then they began to get active. Why, oh why when you are just about to do something difficult does the smoker go out? With the weather starting to cloud over and become cold, there was no hope of abandoning and waiting for the smoker to start. I just had to keep going on with the operation. Success was measured in two clean hive floors, no mice and most importantly no stings... Of course, the smoker started belching out smoke and the sun beat down, the instant I got back to the garden room.

My husband decided to make the bat box more secure and so we had a bat flying about the garden in bright sunlight. It swooped low over the garden for awhile and then we think went back to the box. My husband and youngest son both commented that they did not think there was a bat in the bat box and it could have been just the first flight of Spring. I begged to differ.

PHS, guilty secrets and gardening

First of all, my post about Josh Groban is up at the Pink Heart Society. It is also the first time I have attempted to use youtube embedded. So I took on faith Donna Alward's instructions and they worked. An other reason to love my critique partner. Just to prove I can do it. This Josh Groban song Anthem from Chess really helped me get through the revisions of the Viking.


I have also discover that there is a survey about guilty reading secrets being conducted for world book day. I was honest and did admit that I do sometimes read the ending before finishing the book... But I have never claimed to read a book that I haven't and I have never written in library book, not even when I was little. They also ask which author/books are most enjoyable. No prizes for guessing that one of my choices was Mills & Boon. You can take the survey here.

Yesterday, it was a call to arms. Some people like Kate Hardy take their children to London for the day. We, on the other hand, used our children as unpaid slave labour and started to clean the garden. A good time was had by all, once they actually stopped complaining and started cutting down ivy and moving branches. There is something very therapeutic about moving lots of junk and trimming hedges. The children though beg to differ, particularly when sitting on their bottoms watching television.

Both beehives survived and bees were seen taking in pollen. The hazel is currently in flower as are the winter aconites, snowdrops and some crocus.

We also now possess an uber bird feeder with a cage around the peanuts. My husband and youngest are hoping this will prevent the jackdaws from nicking them all. At the moment, we do not suffer from grey squirrels. The reds did unfortunately leave the area a few years ago...

The Six Degrees Game

I am blogging today at Tote Bags about the Six Degrees of Charlotte Bronte. I blame Nicola Cornick for the procrastination. Anyway, there is a chance to win a copy of Impoverished Miss, Convenient Wife.

I discovered yesterday that bees do not see red. Their primary colours are ultraviolet, blue and yellow. They see red as black. Green tends to be more grey, but the ultraviolet really stands out. Of course, humans cannot see the ultraviolet. So the world must really look different.
Research has into bee sight has been done as scientists want to know why bees go for certain types of flowers.
Also some flowers such as tomato flowers, and honeysuckle are buzz flowers -- in other words they do not easily give up their pollen to the honey bee. Bumblebees with the way they collect nectar are the type of bee that these flowers need. It is one of the reasons why it is important to encourage all types of bees and hover flies in one's garden.

In the absence of checking my hives, I have been reading the British Beekeeping Association newsletter.

And there may be a reason why the mole has been winning. I think I put the mole traps in upside down...From seeing a clip on the news about the Devon molecatcher, it would appear the trap needs to go as the roof of the tunnel rather than as the base. However, I was comforted by the fact that he said moles were tricky and he did use the same sort of trap. When ground defrosts, I shall try...My husband and children found this most amusing...

Do I have bees?

The whole question of whether or not the bees have made it through the winter is currently vexing me. My husband even casually mentioned that perhaps I should consider reading the latest missive from British Beekeepers Association about what to do in the early spring. He suggested going to look at the hives. I looked. However, there is snow on the ground. Unlike moles, when the weather is cold, bees clump together and hibernate.
But I do worry. Part of this worry is because I did not put mouse guards on before I left for Sorrento in the autumn and by the time I had returned, the weather had gone cold and the mice would be hibernating. I did not dare check to see as the weather was too cold...and so on. Mice like to eat honey and hives make perfect hibernating places. This is the first time that I have not put mouse guards on. SIGH.
The winter aconite is in flower as is the hazel tree. There should be plenty of pollen and such like for them. The one good thing about the garden is that we do have year round flowers.
My husband said that he saw the starling looking interested in the hole in the wall where it had chicks last year. Spring will be here before I know it, and I will have my answer about the bees.

ducklings, bees and the wip

First of all, we still have three ducklings. They are at the weep, weep weep stage.Their mother keeps going off and they lose sight of her. Then the weep, weep, weep cry goes out, pentrating everywhere until the mother is found. Proper quacking happens about the time the pin feathers come in.
It is a different sort of parenting -- more the it is the duckling's responsibility to stay with the mother, rather the parental responsibility to look for them if they go wandering off and get in trouble. If trouble happens when she is near by, she will defend the ducklings. I have seen her charge other ducks and hens, for example.
I am currently in my last one hundred pages of the wip. It is getting better and I do know the ending. Once the first draft is done, then the fun bit begins -- namely the editing and revising. My editor has said that her thoughts about my other one -- the third Viking -- will be back sometime after the August Bank Holiday.
Tomorrow is the August Bank Holiday. This means summer is coming to an end. The plums on ripening nicely on the Victoria plum tree, but we do not have many pears or damsons. Apparently there are not many sloes this year either. I suspect a bad frost at blossom time. The bees appear to be busy. A beekeeper up the road lost three out of his five hives earlier this year. This is worrying. But for the moment, our hives are fine and producing honey.
I think I will be harvesting in mid September...

Disappearing Bees

I had to laugh when I watched Dr Who last Saturday and they mentioned the problem of the bees going. Following the bees helped them.
One of the more outlandish suggestions for Colony Collapse Disorder is alien abduction. One inspection there are there, and the next, the colony is empty with the few remaining bees having all sorts of diseases.
However, they just do not know the cause. Other theories include giving far too much fructose, a new parasite, moving colonies about too much, requeen with foreign queens etc etc. The vast majority of CCD has happened to commercial bee farmers who move the bees about following the seasons. Because these tend to be large producers, the loss of 90% of their bees shows up far more quickly. If the problem was confined to hobby beekeepers, it would not have shown up as quickly. Commerical beekeepers though are responsible for most of the pollination of the major fruiting crops. They move bees with the seasons and the crops. from blueberries in Maine to peach orchards in Georgia.
The US congress has just allocated $10 million for research. I believe the British government cut funding. Certainly the British Beekeepers Association are trying to raise awareness of the problems.
The major problem is without bees there is little to no pollination. Modern farming methods of fruit and nut crops can not exist without the humble bee. Yields would collapse.
On a happier note: my bees are doing well. Thus far, I have avoided swarming. I suspect it is due to having the right sort of Queen excluder and enticing the bees up into the supers by allowing the queen to lay for a little while before shaking her down and putting on the excluder. It could also be dumb luck. But we used to suffer greatly from honey clogging in the brood nest.
They appear to be busy and I am hoping for a good harvest of honey this year.
I must get around to making more candles as a load of wax from last year still needs to be processed.
The papers have been full of the New Survivalists (actually they simply look like smallholders). But I would point out that bees are good for the environment, provide honey and wax for candles. The only problem is that they are a hobby with a sting.
But it is good that people are noticing that bees are disappearing. I only hope that they discover the cause before it is too late as somehow I do not think we can rely on Dr Who to fix this problem. But I was pleased the problem got a mention in the programme.

Harvesting honey

Taking Tom's encouraging comment in the last post and the fact the weather suddenly cleared, I went for it and got the supers off the hives. The Porter bees escapes worked. This year I had made sure they were properly primed and very few bees were within the supers. An in and out operation with the bees only belatedly realising all their honey stores had gone.

The great thing about having bees is that every year is different. You think you know what to expect, but there is always a different amount, a different combination of flowers and different problems to solve. This year proved no expectation -- I knew there had been oil seed rape around, but it has not been a problem in previous years. Oil seed rape gives lots of honey BUT it crystallizes really quickly. And when I took the supers off and started to spin, it was obvious that a huge amount of oilseed rape had been collected, most of eaten during the long weeks of rain with a few remaining bits of capped crystallized honey on the top supers.
Most of the harvest was the usual rosebay willow herb, lovely runny honey with a little bit of heather. Other than 2001, we have not had a great deal of heather.
Anyway, honey fresh from the comb is the best sort of honey. I love watching the rich golden liquid as it drains from the spinner into the filtering tank and then finally into bottles.
I always do feel a connection with the seasons and the past as I do this. It does not matter than movable frames are a 19th century invention, it is just lovely to think about how important honey has been through the ages.
It looks to be an average harvest -- 40 - 60 lbs when all is said and done.
And then there will be the candles to make...

The trouble with bees

is that they sting.

Currently I am nursing four stings on my left arm and one sting on my inner thigh. This is a direct result of putting the Porter bee escapes in and having to separate out the supers in order to lift them. All was well and I was feeling superior until the heaviest two stuck together. I had to lift and several of the frames came out. This annoyed the bees who guessed correctly that all their lovely stores were about to depleted.

I decided the better part of valour was not to take the supers and simply to put on the bee escapes. I should be able to get the supers on Thursday after they have cleared of bees. In a strange way, it is all rather exciting. The danger time of beekeeping. Luckily I am not allergic (or not very)

It is not exactly ideal BUT the weather has turned colder and I will need to treat for varroa soon rather than later. So the supers will have to come off and the honey harvested BEFORE I go to London. The words having no time to breathe come to mind.

Thus far, it looks a decent honey harvest but nowhere near as much as last year. This is good as about 50 lbs remaining from last year.

But oh how bee stings sting.

Bee swarms and winners

Yesterday, the bees swarmed again. They went back to the same spot and this time I was able to capture them and put them in a new hive. Later after I take off the honey, I will unite the swarm with the weakest colony.
It is far too late in the season to expect any honey from this swarm.
But I am currently wondering if the werid weather has mixed up animals' instincts. Several of the ducks are trying to nest again. Normally by this stage, they are well into the moult and have given up. I do NOT want more ducklings.

The winners for the various contests have been drawn and notified.
Marty won the critque contest.
Maureen Edmonds won the first prize in the Taken by the Viking contest
and Judy Cox won the second prize -- a signed paperback from my backlist.
I also had run a myspace contest and Jenny won that.

My next contest should be in October...full details will be in my next newsletter.

Beekeeping in February

Time was that I would have never dreamt of having anything to do with the bees in February.They were hibernating, clumped in a ball. I might have to lift a beehive to make sure they had enough stores. If it was a clear day with snow on theground, I would look for the signs that the bees had done their flying. I could also think about getting into the bee garden -- not in full bee suit.
Those days are over -- a t least for this winter.
Yesterday, the bees were so busy, and hanging off the hive that I decided the time had come to put a super on. I am repeating what I did last year in hopes that it will yield the same fantastic results. The theory is that Queen starts laying in the super, and shaken down, and the queen excluder put on. Then the workers are most likely to go and put the honey up in th super, rather than in the frames.And fingers crossed, no honey congestion, and therefore no swarms. Swarms are the bane of my life in early Spring...

That is all I shall do until late March/Early April with the mousegurads comes off, the floors are changed and any old disgusting brood comb is removed. The air temperature is still far too cold to go into the brood box its self, but the bees were very numerous...


My wip continues to move forward. I was in full of tears yesterday as I was typing . My dh thought me odd. I only hope one tenth of the emotion I felt is conveyed to the reader when the book is eventually published. My editor's wise words keep circling in my brain -- just keep writing.

The decorating is done and the items moved backinto the kitchen. The blue green grey colour makes the pine stand out. And as the ceiling is now gleaming white instead of a dingy coal dust grey, the whole thing looks far better.