The RHS Rosemoor Rose Festival was glorious. The roses were all out in bloom and their sweet scent wafted through the warm summer air.
Even though the blowsy colourful blooms thickly clustered with petals looked magnificent, it wass the simple open single rose flowers that attracted the attention of the bees.
This is always the way, the double blooms may look glorious to us, but simplicity is beauty to the bees.
The third installment of the #BidefordHoneyBeeSwarm.
On day three of collecting the swarm from Bideford, the bees have bee put into a new hive, and are now being fed with sugar syrup. At this point I would typically medicate the bees against the Varoa mite, but haven’t had the chance to do this yet.
In the picture, you can see the bees coming up from the hive below into a feeder.
The feeder is essentially a dish with a lid, that I fill with sugar syrup. The feeder sits on top of the hive in a box that I cover with the roof, so its normally in the dark inside the hive.
The sugar syrup is 1 part sugar to 1 part water and is typically fed to the bees during spring and summer to encourage the queen to lay.
In this instance I have given it to the bees to encourage them to build out comb in the hive, but also at this time of year (May/June) there may not be too much forage (flowers) around for the bees as we are on the cusp of the summer flowers coming out.
The second part of #BidefordHoneyBeeSwarm. A couple of days ago, I collected a swarm of honey bees from Bideford.
The small colony of bees collected from the plum tree have been put into a small hive (Nuc) and placed in the quarantine apiary. Here they will be treated for disease and on day 3 fed a light sugar syrup to help them build in size.
Currently I have placed the Nuc next to the hive where they will be housed.
The bees have started leaving the Nuc and familiarising themselves with the surrounding area. You can see this by their behavior. When the Nuc was first positioned and the bees let out, they would emerge from the Nuc and fly in ever increasing circles up into the sky.
This is to allow them to spot landmarks and orientate in relation to their new home.
The next step will be to feed and medicate the new colony.
I have just collected this nice little swarm of Honey Bees from a building site in Barnstaple.
I got a call from the Site Manager. The bees had been clustering underneath some scaffolding since yesterday. Conveniently located at ground level, I put them in a box and brought them back to our isolation apiary.
Remember, if you have a Honey Bee Swarm that needs collecting and the swarm is in the local area of Bickington or Fremington, contact me. My details are below, or go to my webpage: https://chilcottsfarm.co.uk/bees/local-swarm-collector/ to find out more and to check it is a Honey Bee Swarm.
Contact me if you have a Honey Bee Swarm that you need removing:
Telephone: 07403 311920
Or, email me using the form below:
If I am not available, or you need a Swarm Collector for another area, please go to the British Beekeepers website and put in your post code: https://www.bbka.org.uk/swarm This will provide a list of Honey Bee Swarm Collectors near to you.
If you have had a Honey Bee Swarm collected and wish to make a voluntary donation toward expenses, please complete the form below:
