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Showing posts from April, 2018

Honey flow

The weather the last two weeks has caused the flora to explode. With that, there is an over abundance of nectar, and the bees are working hard to collect as much as possible. I gave all of the colonies a honey super and am now waiting and observing their development. One colony is overflowing with bees and they probably will need a second brood chamber by the weekend. The same colony as mentioned above also displayed some aggressive behaviour which I will need to keep an eye on. I was stung three times by the same colony and I certainly do not want to have bees that like to sting. On the other hand, I will observe them, as they are by far the strongest colony and have already made great progress drawing out comb. Replacing the queen would be a possibility to mitigate the aggressive behaviour, but I'll only do that if absolutely necessary. The weather this week is cooler, but still favourable for the honey flow and for bee reproduction and flight. Things are pointing in the right ...

Good start to 2018 season

My last post was July 2017. Oops! I am still in the beekeeping business and it looks like we have a good start to the 2018 season. It is sometimes hard to find the motivation to update the blog especially during the offseason. All six of our colonies survived the winter and were left relatively unscathedfrom varroa destructor. I was diligent enough to be sure to treat the colonies against the mites. In winter the bees received two oxalcilic treatments that rendered them nearly mite free. I have also begun to give each colony a drone frame to jump start the culling of infected drone brood. My plan is to make 1 or 2 nucs sometime after the first honey harvest. I will write about that when the time comes. Hopefully I will stay on top of the blog this season.