This page is a link through to our Face book site – showing our most recent posts.
107
Read Apiaries
Welcome to Read Apiaries.
Like most UK beekeepers (there’s about 44,000 of us) I keep Honey Bees
Well, this spring is a bit different to last year isn’t it. The colonies are ok, but they are using what nectar there is coming in and there’s no surplus for stores. It’s just been too cold for the flowers – so non of our colonies have any buffer store and certainly nothing building up for us humans to take. There’s even reports of some colonies starving, the national bee unit have just issued an alert.![]()
![]()
Let’s hope it now starts to warm up.
Pleased to report that all our colonies have made it through the winter. On our first full inspection all the hives still had their Queen and were busy raising brood (new bees). There was some pollen and nectar starting to be brought in. A bit too early to say if we will have a spring crop as the spring flowers are only just starting to appear in volume – we will keep you posted. We do still have some honey left from last year. ![]()
![]()
And just for a random addition: I spotted some Honey bees collecting water from a damp wall, filmed in Madeira recently. Must be a colony somewhere nearby.
The honey bee colonies are clustering to keep themselves and any brood warm. Here’s some of my hives at night as seen with a thermal camera. You can clearly see where the cluster is in the brood box, from the relative heat leaking through the woodwork.
It might be winter, but the beekeeping continues, albeit at a slower pace. ![]()
![]()
Equipment not in use over winter needs cleaning in preparation for next year, like this Queen excluder that was full of brace comb cleaned up this evening. ![]()
![]()
And a lot of wax debris from the hives that needs cleaning : melting down into blocks to either recycle or sell.
After many years, I finally got around to making a honey warming cabinet, needed as part of the carefully temperature controlled process to turn runny honey into soft set honey. Which means, we now also have soft set honey for sale!