Been a bad year for my Bees. Started off OK at home and then I moved them to the land but then was a big greedy and split them at the same time to give me five hives. That wouldn’t have helped, then I had issues with the queens and there were delays during the season where they should have been gathering pollen.
The space where I put them is pretty sheltered and doesn’t get any cold winds. So I thought it would be OK. However, I think it is too sheltered as they didn’t start foraging till late in the day. I’ve been told that sunlight hitting the hive in the morning triggers them to start foraging. Sunlight doesn’t hit them until much later in the day and so the time they spend foraging is significantly less than it could be.
So now we are at the end of the year and two hives are gone. Two more don’t look as good as they should although you can’t really tell. They all have plenty of food and are still foraging a bit, which isn’t good news, as they should be settling down for the winter and not wasting energy and bees going out at this time of year. This risks them running out of food and I need to keep feeding them.
So I’ve decided to move them to another spot. It is less sheltered but it gets the sun as soon as it comes up and it stays all day. I’m going to install some new bases over the next few weeks and then early in the new year I’ll move them, perform a shook swarm and start next year with a new start. This assumes that they make it through the winter. Fingers crossed.
Unfortunately, live and learn can’t be pre-learnt. It will be better next year.
Hope it works out mate.
I’d love to keep bees (love honey) but my missus is terrified of them.
If you are looking after bees you are going to get stung but in the few years I have had mine nobody else in the family has. I had mine at the bottom of the garden with a windbreaker between them and the house. Rarely seen a bee near the house but seen plenty of wasps.
Depends on you garden and what goes on in it. I found them a lot less trouble than I thought they would be. I also found them a lot more reliant on humans than a wild animal should be.
There is little point performing any invasive treatments other then feeding them with candy at this time of year. Try to ensure that the quilt/crown boards are well insulated and the mouse guards are in place to protect the weakened hives. I wish you the best of luck
Candy is made by dissolving sugar in water and allowing it to crystallise like Kendal mint cake.
Thanks for that. Just making the bases and the hives ready so when it comes time to move everything is ready.