Feed bag

Temperature: 14C
Weather: Light wind, chilly but no cloud
Stings: None

Another quick visit to finishing sorting out the bees for winter. I took off the brood box which was empty of bees thanks to the Porter bee escapes. I put the wet combs in its place over the crown board with the bee escapes on. So the bees will slowly come out of that and into the chamber below where I put an empty super and the feeder. I'll go back at the weekend to take out the wet combs and then they will be all snug for the winter. I'll give them a good deal more food but they are pretty much ready to go.

Prep school

Temperature: 20C
Weather: Cloudy but bright
Stings: None

A longer visit today to start the process of closing down the hive for the winter.

I took out the Apiguard as that's been in for about a month. I consolidated the two brood boxes into one and put all the stores in the remaining box. They have about 4 frames of stores which is not going to be enough if, fingers crossed, we have another hard winter. I'll give them some syrup this week to help them prepare. I think they will need about 5-6 frames of stores to keep them ticking over.

I bumped and moved them around quite a lot and they weren't too annoyed by it. I got buzzed a few times but they left me alone when I was taking my veil off.

I also put in the super that I extracted the honey from last week so they can clear that up and get a little more in hand for the long winter days. Above that is the other brood box with porter bee escapes between so they can get out to the other brood box. I fee slightly guilty about taking that given how little I have left them but with the syrup they'll be okay. I hope.

In that upper brood box there are a few drawn frames so I should get them off to an okay start early next year. It will mean that I can get started replacing the older comb eImage via Wikipediaarlier in the year with newer to stop disease spreading.

I also checked the tray underneath the mesh and the Apiguard looks like it knocked down lots of mites. Not a huge amount. More than fell off when I was doing the count but not a huge number. Not enough to make me worried. I think they are fairly well set up. On Wednesday, I'll re-organise things again - it occurs to me that I might have trapped the queen above the excluder but I don't think I have. The frame I took out was not fully drawn so I can't see why she would be there. I'll find out on Wednesday.

In and out

A very quick visit today to renew the Apiguard block.
They had not taken down all tImage via Wikipediahe first one but it was pretty well used. I also put in an entrance block so they are a bit more protected in the next few months. They were very grumpy when I opened up and swapped over the Apiguard tray.

There did seem to be a lot of bees bringing in pollen too, more than I would have expected at this time of year. The pollen was bright orange and some of the bees had it all over them. I've no idea what flower it was. There are precious few plants flowering at this time of year. Ivy?

On the next visit I'll take out the tray of thymol and start consolidating the two boxes into one. They have laid down lots of stores so I think they are going to be okay. I'll keep back a few to help them early next year. It depends on how many they have.