I'm curious to know where the bees are heading to when they leave the hive. At the moment they are definitely all heading behind our house, but there are several problems in tracking them - they move surprisingly fast when they are on a mission, they can fly several kilometres in search of food, and you can't follow them in a bee-line trampling over neighbours gardens, patios, fences etc.
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Over the last two weeks the bees have been mega busy, flight path now seems to wing over the back garden and away.
We visited the local Bee store, and bought a second top box, and what seems to be a huge vat for storing honey - it was actualy the smallest one available, but could take 40 kg of honey! The recommendation from bee school would be to buy an even bigger one, as once you have the bug you tend to increase the number of hives, and therefore soon 40kg will be too small, but thought if we get anything to put in ours this year I'll be happy - and maybe later it will still be handy! Have prepared the frames in the 2nd top box, ably assisted by Marc. At the moment in the first top box, we have 2 frames containing honey partially capped, 2 more frames with honey being actively stored - the bees will have to fan it with their wings to reduce the water content before sealing the honeycomb, and on the other 5 frames the bees are building the wax framework. It's tricky taking photos to show how the frames are developing, as have to hold frame up and take one glove off to work the camera, so sorry for lack of pictures - here's the best I could do - you can just about see the honeycomb building up on each side of the frames! Weather has been warm, sometimes stormy, but mainly dry this week.
Every day there has been a buzzing crowd of bees coming and going by the entrance - busy, busy foragers ! I struggled riding my bike against the wind one day - how do the bees cope in the same conditions ? I looked in the hive yesterday - and the mass of bees in the body of the hive is an amazing sight, many many more than 4 weeks ago, when the hive arrived. Also construction is now underway in the top box - :) The weather has been a bit damp this week, and whilst the bees have been making regular sorties, think its only the most intrepid that have continued to come and go whilst dodging some of the raindrops. Today is overcast but warm, so I took the opportunity to have a look inside the hive. There were about a hundred bees in the top box, but little evidence of any structure yet being built onto the new wax sheet half frames in there. When I lifted the top box off, you can see the mass of bees working on the frames in the body of the hive : I decided to leave them be (!) and put the top box back in place.
Have been inspecting the neighbouring flora with new interest, and can report that we have acacia and wisteria in flower nearby. When you watch the bees coming and going, there are definately two main flight paths - one doubling back from the hive entrance and heading behind our house, the other one going up and straight out, forward, across our small road and into our neighbours gardens. The returning bees have packs of bright yellow pollen on their back legs. Don't think you can really see that on these photos, but here are several shots of the landing pad today ! |
Jill G novice beekeeper & blogger
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February 2022
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