Title Photo: Honey Bee on Thyme
As the temperatures this month continue to break records in the heat, the good nectar flows from the start of the month dried up even affecting the deep roots of the Lime trees which were flowering well.
How do the bees cope with all this heat trying to regulate the heat in their colonies? Well one thing they do is to “clump” outside their front door hanging in a cluster.
Commonly known as “Bearding.” This keeps the workforce, that have little to do in all of this heat, away from the brood allowing good air circulation through the varroa floor or entrance.
I try to remove my Varroa slides when temperatures peak as this can only help
Part of our routine inspections should be to remove the trays, examine debris and destroy any Wax Moth lurking under the floor if not this is what happens.
European Foul Brood:
As I write this, we have an ever increasing outbreak of EFB in our area with entire Apiaries being destroyed and dead bees, frames, wax and honey all burnt in an attempt to prevent spreading the infections.
When carrying out brood chamber examinations, please take the time to examining the grubs in their cells and if you have any suspicions they may be, I’ll take a photograph and contact the local Bee Inspector .
“Bee Base” is a wonderful web site with plenty of sensible well grounded advice from the Bee Inspection team, with updated advice on using ‘Bleach’ in your soda crystal solution to clean equipment and boots. www.nationalbeeunit.com
Regular washing of Bee Suits with the Hood in the sleeve is also essential.
Wasps:
It is clearly going to be a bad year with many Queen Wasps surviving the winter and breeding early as this unseasonable warm spring /summer has allowed numbers to increase early.
I’ve already had one hive, which went Queenless and deteriorated rapidly, robbed out by wasps and there were thousands of the little predators helping themselves to the contents of the hive.
We can help the colonies by making sure they only have one entrance to defend, well maintained hives that have roofs that fit is a good start.
Any strong colony will soon see off most wasp incursions but weak colonies or Nucs will need extra protection and small front doors!
If you are concerned, try to find any nearby nests and kill them in the evening using commercially produced wasp killers, normally impregnated into a powder works efficiently. Ant killer works just as well.
But if you cannot find any nests setting traps ten metres away from your hives, if you can, normally will reduce the number of worker wasps.
I’ve got nothing against Wasps the “insect undertakers” they are, as long as they leave my hives well alone.
Be warned their numbers can only increase as the summer advances.
Wax Moth:
Another pest which is on the rise.
This was a weak hive that had struggled to get through the winter but had a 2024 Queen so I thought I’d give them a fighting chance. Bad decision .
Wax moth won, and under all this mess was the Queen and a few bees and patches of brood .
The Queen and bees did not survive so combs were burnt after chickens fed on the wax moth caterpillars.
June Gap:
This is spoken about in hushed tones by some Beekeepers as some years it is only a couple of days but this year it has gone on for weeks and weeks.
The heat has burnt off any flowers we would normally get a good Nectar flow from, including clover and blackberry.
But not a lot we can do except maybe plant lots of herbs which flower at this time, leaving insects a little somewhere to feast in the sunshine.
Local Honey:
As most of us have taken off our spring crop, as good as it was, don’t undersell this premium product. There are plenty of customers about who will flock to your door once the word is out that this season’s honey is available.
This is what a local Supermarket was selling at the end of June:
Queen Breeding:
If you’ve not tried it before, just try splitting a hive into two colonies filling up the spaces you leave with new frames and foundation.
If you cannot find the Queen, don’t worry, leave them 7 days and you will soon find the one with emergency Queen cells.
Then manage what find. You need to keep leaving only one emergency Queen cell, then leave alone for a fortnight. The weaker hive might need feeding weak syrup in all this heat.
But remember – a small entrance or wasps will have a go!
By the Autumn you should have two thriving hives.
There are many more complicated ways of breeding Queens, but for a small Apiarist this can work well and then next year try coming to a few Association Apiary meetings where different methods can be demonstrated.
Hope for some rain in July or the Beekeeping season will soon be over as Queens slow their egg laying and going into survival mode.
More next month: This will go onto my strongest hive to draw out combs for next season’s use