Title Photo: Any Wasp Trap size fits all
After the extreme heat at the start of the month the temperatures cooled as we approached August but the lack of rain dried up the chance of any summer or late nectar flows.
But the Wasps and Hornets are having a field day as they seem to have a second sense as to which hives are weakening or have failing Queens.
I think we’ve all had hives completely robbed out leaving us with an empty hive full of empty combs.
This roof dried out in the heat and a chunk of wood clearly fell out giving wasps an easy way in. Luckily I spotted this and carried out repairs before any damage was done.
Which is more than I can say for one of my Poly Nucs in which I was breeding a young Queen for next season, some of you may have seen this when you visited our Apiary. The wasps overwhelmed them just as she had started laying and totally destroyed the colony. This was even after I had reduced the entrance to a one-bee-at-a-time entry.
This has resulted in all of my colonies having wooden entrance blocks put in and some even “taped up” to reduce the size of the “front door” even more.
So please give your colonies a fighting chance and take similar action. Get those wasp traps out to reduce the population of worker wasps around your hives.
Those of you that have extracted a honey crop and returned supers, in the evening, to the colony they came from, need to consider how you store them in the coming winter months.
I put Queen excluders top and bottom with blanked out crown boards or just a sheet of wood to keep out the rats and mice!
This crown board failed the test as mice had a field day chewing away at the plywood. Fortunately it was not protecting a stack of supers but I found it when having a ‘Bee-Shed’ summer clear out.
I see the European Honey is still flowing into our local supermarkets.
We all receive those calls from local residents about bees in their garden causing problems and those amongst us who reply to these calls for help, have learnt to request a picture to see what we are dealing with before we visit.
These first two pictures are drainage access points at the Stratford Golf Course.
They were clearly going to fail to survive the winter so I scooped them up and united with a weak Nuc, one that has subsequently not been robbed out.
Then we have another colony in a Compost bin, I seem to be getting one of these each season at present! I’ll update you on how I get on with this one if the wasps don’t beat me to it!
Then we get onto European Hornets which, like the wasps, are on the rise this year and predating my colonies.
In fact the first picture shows two trying to eat their way into a Poly Nuc which I clearly need to get into a solid wood hive before I end up with yet another colony robbed out.
Then the strong colonies in wooden hives also have to defend against the Hornets:
As you can see in the next picture wooden a block in the entrance, tape to ensure no extra holes about and the bees mass outside to deter or mass defend the predating hornets.
If you look bottom right of the picture you can see a Hornet dissecting a honey bees it just captured on its return flight to the hive, but it didn’t make it home.
If this keeps on I may be patrolling the Apiary with a BADMINGTON racket in hand.
So any daft ideas I had last month of getting strong hives to draw out Foundation into Brood frames for next year’s use have long gone.
It is about protecting the colonies from all these predators and preparing for the Autumn/Winter shut down.
There is very little breeding taking place at the present time so if you have a Varroa problem it will be a good time to treat before you feed Fondant, Sugar syrup or Ambrosia
But I can say the extreme heat or maybe the bees, are starting to adapt better to the Varroa infestation has reduced the numbers I’m seeing but Deformed Wing Virus is still evident in some of my hives.
Next Month: Feeding, if necessary, and preparing for the winter.
At the same time keeping up the defence of colonies from the wasps and hornets.