MELT DOWN...

Bewitching honeybee on one of the many beautiful Sedums, ( Hylotelephium spectabile), in my garden.

The Autumn season is now under way and the honeybees are making the most of the mild weather. They’re busy, on their last push before the chill sets in, gathering pollen and nectar from the Ivy and beautiful flowers that grace our gardens at this glorious time of year.

This booking was taken before the 2020 diaries came out..

Time goes by so quickly. I can’t believe it has been almost a month since my last blog. I guess that’s due to a number of factors being, less work with the bees themselves and more talks being given, and, may I say booked. Every day I’m receiving one or two bookings for next year which is fantastic. My 2020 diary is filling up, which makes the booking, scribbled at the back of my 2019 diary, for 18th Feb 2021 seem less bizarre!

At this time of year beekeepers have harvested the honey and are now feeding their colonies with copious amounts of sugar syrup to replenish their winter stores. It more or less works out as 20kg of sugar per hive! In spite of taking my honey off mid August to spin, which I did so they can continue to forage and keep their stores for themselves in the brood box, (the theory being they will need less sugar syrup), they have been ravenous. Amelie’s Hive and The Green hive have taken a huge amount of sugar syrup this year and The Red Hive is still feeding. We ‘heft’ the hives, which in layman terms means we gently lift from the bottom of the brood box, to see how heavy they are and from this we gauge whether to start feeding or not. I like to feed anyway, because if the bees don’t need it, they won’t take it and for me that is a best indicator of their requirements. If you’ve noticed a sugar shortage in your local supermarket it’s because I, along with many other beekeepers, have been buying up all their sugar stock! There’s another reason I like to harvest early and top off with sugar syrup and it is thus: Some beekeepers save a super from each hive, (a super being the box in which they store their excess feed), and place it underneath the brood box for the bees to use throughout the winter. It is after all the reason they have been collecting all the nectar throughout the spring and summer months, and let’s not forget the early autumn Ivy. Believe it or not they don’t forage for us, they do it for themselves! So this method is an admirable thing to do. However, when it’s very cold, the honeybees won’t go down in to the super and collect the nectar, they stay clustered together for warmth and the protection of the queen. As a result of this they sometimes can die of starvation. So my theory, good or bad is; if the honey is with them in the brood box (go back to my taking the supers off early and leaving them the rest of the summer forage for themselves), they may have easier access to it. Having said that, if the frames with the stores are way back from the cluster they still won’t collect it and the same outcome is inevitable. Come January, beekeepers tend to check where the frame is in the brood box with the cluster of bees and put a good helping of fondant icing right above them to make absolutely sure they have enough food to get them through to early spring. Again, if they don’t take it, they don’t need it. Better to be safe than sorry. Every beekeeper, as with any gardener/hobbyist will have their own method of doing things. You do what you figure out works best for your honeybees.

Theoretically, at this time of year, the honeybees are reducing in number as the queen is now laying less and less. Honeybees don’t hibernate or fly south! Instead the queen reduces the amount she lays and thus they decrease in number from about 50/60,000 per colony to roughly 10,000 and it is the job of the worker bees left in the colony to look after the queen, keep her fed, safe and warm. They work a bit like the penguins,, rotating from the outside to the inside of the cluster, so no one honeybee gets too cold. To see my hives at the moment you would think no-one’s told them this. They’re full to busting with bees! I’m not complaining. A large hive stands far more of a chance of survival than a small one. In fact, I would say this is my best year yet in terms of strength of my colonies. This guarantees nothing but does give them a better chance. I have now treated my hives with Apiguard which is a natural Varroa mite treatment and all that’s left to do is continue to feed the red hive until they say “no more!” Above is an image I took of The Red Hive when I put the Apiguard on. I don’t think my queen has cottoned on to the reduction in laying theory! Either that or it’s still too mild. I think the latter is more probable as in subtropical, tropical, and mild winter conditions, the queen doesn’t stop laying and brood rearing continues.

So what am I doing now my bees are all but hunkered down. Why… I’m preparing for The National Honey Show. Follow this link, take a look and find out more - https://www.honeyshow.co.uk/ - do come along. I have a stand there with Betsie Valentine And The Honeybees. I run a colouring competition to win a book on my stand and I’ll also be giving a talk on the Saturday to Children in the Junior Section. There are all sorts of stands to visit and if you’re thinking of becoming a beekeeper - there could be no better place to visit to get your nectar flowing! I’ve decided to enter various competitions this year. I’m going to put a couple of Jars of honey from Amelie’s hive in to the Identical Jars of honey section. I‘m knitting like crazy for the needlework section and throughout the winter months last year I made a cross stitch pin cushion. Well, I say I made it, I have done the cross stitch bit but I haven’t put it together yet! I have also hand printed material to turn into beeswax wraps for The Identical beeswax Wraps category. Just call me Kirstie Allsop.. I am on fire!

The other thing I decided to do is melt down all the wax I have collected this year, if only to clear a bit of space in my garage and utility room! This includes the wax collected from the old Brood Box frames following the Bailey Comb Changes in early Spring and all the wax collected from the hives during the colony inspections. I found a new method that really worked well. It’s all trial and error, most of my melt downs have been ‘error’ but this has been a success so it’s a method I’ll definitely stick with until someone tells me different.

Schools are back, the Brownies and Scouts are in full swing and I’m delighted that my diary is packed with talks to these wonderful communities. I’ve had Brown Owls warn me that the children may fidget and some may wander off, but it hasn’t happened to me yet! They become really engrossed in the subject and by the end of the talk the children are genuinely bursting with questions they want to ask and have a great desire to know more. I love it. This is why I wrote my book. And I know I’ve said it before, so pardon this moment of repetition; I am always so thrilled when Teachers, Scout leaders, Brown Owls, come up to me saying they learned so much. It is a “back of the net” moment for me. The response is the same wherever I go. As my children say “Mum you have found an outlet for your power talking!” and what a great outlet it is…

Finally, Amelia. What a star. She wants to become a beekeeper and has now joined the Chalfont Beekeepers’ Society. She has her first “Taster Session” on Wednesday 15th October. If you would like to see what beekeeping is like follow this link - https://www.chalfontsbeekeepers.co.uk/our-apiaries-copy - and have a go yourself - nothing to lose everything to gain! Remember she wrote to a couple of bee equipment suppliers and told them she was learning about beekeeping? I wrote about it in an earlier blog and they sent her a bee suit, gloves and smoker.. well this time she wrote to Rowse Honey and asked if she could have a tour around their factory and they wrote her a lovely letter back saying they didn’t do tours but sent her lots of goodies! She is entering the Junior Class at the National Honey Show in the art section and has made and inspirational piece of art work. I haven’t seen it yet but it sounds extremely clever. She’s made a ‘Super’ and filled it with frames and put pictures of her ‘journey’ through the beekeeping year in each frame. Brilliant! I wish I had thought of such a thing! When I see it I’ll photograph it and put it up for all to see. I’m so proud of her. I’ve suggested she start her own blog which she could use to educate and inspire other youngsters to take an interest in the honeybees and possibly become beekeepers themselves. Remember, as I write this and you read it, Amelie is only just 8 years old. Quite incredible. I have said she can raise a colony at my Apiary so I can continue to mentor her and then she can decide if she wants to commit and buy a hive for herself and we can transfer that colony in to her own hive. She bought me these beautiful cakes as a thank you.. they were not only beautiful but extremely delicious.. thank you Amelie.. you are inspirational.

And so it is that two of my hives, Amelie’s on the left and The Green Hive, on the right, are all hunkered down. The entrances have been reduced, mouse guards are on and insulation covers put on them. The last one, The Red Hive, is still taking feed down but have their mouse guard on and soon will be ready to have their insulation cover on. I wish all my girls the best throughout the winter. I’ll miss them and already I can’t wait to see them next Spring!

This blog isn’t ending… oh no no no siree… I’ll continue to tell you about all the things I’m up to and of course keep you posted on what’s going on up at the Apiary during the course of the next few months. However, with the season coming to a close I’d like to leave you with these two wonderful, poignant images. The honeybee photograph was taken by an incredible photographer… Pim Lemers from The Netherlands.

See you in a few weeks…