This morning (before the heat drove us back inside towards noon), I managed to go through four of my hives. I hate to disclose this, but be prepared folks, the heatwave will come to an end. I got the distinct impression that the bees are preparing for a change. Okay now they are only doing what is normal for bees. They are filling up their larders with honey (in the top boxes, above their living quarters), and brood rearing seems to be pushed downwards into the lower boxes. I am always afraid that they are running out of room, as their flying is fast and furious, and lots of honey should be coming in judging by that. But brood rearing also means honey (and pollen) gets consumed in masses, still they are also storing their excess pretty good. They do have good room for brooding and storing, so I didnt have to remove honey frames yet (still waiting that the honey is processed to its end which would be announced by capping the honey cells). I am marking the boxes now that mostly have honey frames so that they could be removed later on. That will be a tight process as I need to ensure that everyone will have plenty of winter food as I do not want to feed any of the hives this year. If all goes well tomorrow morning, there will be more hive checks. It is really really difficult to stolper out of bed before 7AM, have a quick coffee, and then right away going outside to work. That is NOT what life for a pensioner should be about. Even husband follows a short while later. No choice right now. The heat in the afternoon is just too killing for us. I have no clue where my bees forage. For sure not in the white clover, hardly any bees are in there this year. The hives when opened have a woodsy smoky dusky smell, not the sweet smell of flower honey, the hive smell is different this year. Guess I will find out if and when I extract something and taste some, come to think of it, maybe I should just scrape off a bit and then taste early, to satisfy curiosity. Last year A LOT of the bees came helping when I extracted honey, and its being really difficult to find a place where I could exclude them. The best I came up with so far is to hide in the horse trailer, and I may just do that if I can get the men to lift the extractor contraption up into the trailer. We will see. We are very good at finding round-about solutions. This heat doesnt seem to face the bees. They go about their business as usual. I dont see any special preparations by them due to the heat. They have extra ventilation, the larger hives for sure, the lesser hives dont need it. The young queens that were raised here by them seem to be performing well, and I think they are finally done with their queen changing business or thoughts of swarming. I on the other hand should think of setting up just a few small nucs and raise a few extra spare queens, however, I just dont want to go over my hive limit. And nucs have the tendency to grow up into full size hives. I hope our new kick ass fencer arrives this week, which should be pretty powerful and prevent bears to get into the hives. So we are busy puttering around in the morning hours. Husband put the camper back on the truck, so now the camper needs to be cleaned out, organized, and readied for the next town trip. Then next he is cleaning out and organizing the spot where the new hay shall be stored. We dont need too many bales, as we are still feeding from the hay that came two years ago, and havent even touched last years yet. He has always a few other jobs on the go and works on them any chance he gets.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 06:39:04 +0000
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