Apiary Report – 19 Sept

The 1st Sunday meeting had a turnout of only 2 members and myself. The major job for this meeting was to swap every roof on the main hives for 10 brand new roofs from D Cotterill. Thank you to Chris for building these up for us.

The apiary had a mixed collection of roofs before this change – those who come along will know that it is common to see leopard slug gatherings in the roof space or in the brood box. Therefore the committee agreed to investment in new roofs so we have an improved chance of dry, damp-free hives this winter.

We found that several hives treated with MAQS for varroa were now broodless and queenless. There were emergency queencells and following 3rd sunday meeting these have emerged. We must now hope that we can still get queens mated. If not we will have to use some of our nucs to correct the problem.

Again at the 3rd Sunday meeting we had a low turnout – but we went through all hives. We are hoping to see everything coming together at the last apiary meeting of the year on 2nd October. Please come along if you can.

(you may be needed at other times as special jobs come up)

Kevin