The Beekeepers' AGM and Weather Conditions Compared with Last Year
It's the weekend of the local beekeepers' AGM and annual dinner again (menu: Sliced gammon served with baked potatoes, coleslaw, mixed salad, two chutneys and assorted mustards; bread and butter pudding, or fruit salad, or chocolate flan, or chocolate roulade, or any combination; cheese and biscuits; coffee and mints). The Chairman summarised the year for the organisation noting the purchase this time of a second observation hive and, jointly with the county beekeeping association, a gazebo. For once, it seems no new catering equipment was required.
Conversation over dinner included the usual comparison of fortune over the year. We were lucky, it seems. I was aware that a few miles to the North, beekeepers were feeding their bees during the same week that our GBees filled and capped a super with honey but I also learnt that a couple of miles South, bees were also being fed at that time. At one of the apiaries nearest to us and closer to the centre of the village, they also had a huge honey yield so there must be something in the village that filled the gap for the bees between oil seed rape and autumn hedgerows. We think it may have been lime trees. They can, apparently produce large quantities of nectar but the temperature has to be just right at the right time for them to be valuable to bees.
It seems that wasps weren't such a problem for anyone this past year.
Our bees in the home apiary survived the usual wasp attacks because we have learnt to put them on solid floors, or varroa mesh floors with the inspection tray underneath, supplemented by strips of rubber (actually old yoga mat) cut to fill any gaps and prevent wasps getting into the hive from underneath. After reading an article in beekeeping news we made porches out of corrugated plastic sheet (which you can clearly see on the G Bees' hive above) and we filled any little gaps in the hive casing with foam. We have left the porches on for the Winter but will probably take them off early int the Spring.
Penny recommends Waspinators, a kind of bag that imitates a wasp nest and which is supposed to deter wasps because they think there is already a was colony in situ. I've already ordered a couple of them to try in the Summer.
We are all on the lookout for the dreaded Asian hornet. Asian hornet nests were found in Gloucestershire towards the end of the season which could mean that that Queens are already over wintering somewhere....
Weather
A year ago when I blogged about the AGM and dinner, I also commented on the mild Winter we were having and listed all the plants flowering in the garden in late January. What a contrast this year!
We have had unseasonably mild weather up to Christmas. The National Beekeeping Unit sent out a message to beekeepers in the last few days of December recommending the we give our colonies fondant as a supplementary feed because they were receiving reports that some colonies had used their stores because they were still flying rather than huddling in a ball.
On 8th January, when we put the fondant on our hives, both colonies were flying in large numbers. However, since then we have had a cold snap. The only plants flowering this week are Winter flowering honeysuckle and Sarcococca (Winter Box). The cold snap is taking its toll on other animals and plants too and we have lost our lovely Golden Hornet Crab Apple. The bark has been stripped all round the trunk. The culprits are rabbits because the damage is low down. Muntjac deer chew bark from about 1 ft up to 2 ft and roe deer strip bark 3 - 4 ft up the trunk or from low branches. Fortunately, all the trees in the orchard are protected by anti-rabbit devices (wire round their trunks).
