A Month in the Apiary - AUGUST

What a glorious July we had. The weather was lovely on most days (albeit a little unbearably hot during the recent heat wave, an absolute scorcher), the bees have been busy and there is some serious honey action inside the hives. This has obviously influenced the bees as they not only struggle to keep the hives at a constant, optimum temperature, but they have also had to deal with less forage. The bees seem to have been foraging, and the wildflowers have come out at the apiary but the hot temperatures must have caused them to dry up because there seems to have been a bit of a dearth in nectar. The bees are collecting a small amount but there is not a flow on. Therefore, the bees have
been fed, just to keep them going through this spell of extreme heat.

August is upon us, so it’s time to prepare for the Honey Harvest
and reap all the efforts of challenging work – and that of the wonderful bees,
of course. I haven’t decided whether to take a harvest at this stage. Having taken
my hive numbers from less than the fingers on one hand, I’m currently at fourteen.
It’s been demanding work, and has left the colonies in a more weakened state
than I’d wish.

Now is also the time to protect the hives against those greedy wasps that are on the prowl for food and are beginning to cause trouble in the apiary, as they always do! The wasps and robbing bees quickly find any spillages of syrup, so I have tried my absolute best to avoid this, but sometimes it just happens! I have closed the entrances, to a gap or about 2 1⁄2”-3”. It’s these precautions that give the bees the best chance, keeping them as safe as possible from any unwanted attacks. Something I have been guilty of has been leaving gaps when putting the hive back together after an inspection. Other bees in the Apiary and wasps have found the gaps and exploited them to get the honey, there being no guards at the normal entrance.

I’m busy looking at all the Varroa treatments available. The Varroa is a parasite that can kill off a colony, as I found to my cost last year, very quickly indeed.

Nick Pendleton