We Start The 2024 Season With A Beekeeping Mistake
This blog post is the first of my 2024 beekeeping season updates. I will do my best to explain what I am up to and photograph the events as they unfold.
Having spent winter getting slightly excited about the coming season and a lot of changes in my world of beekeeping, one of which is writing these blogs. I have now come to the realisation that I need to remember my experience level and to keep my feet on the floor. No amount of pretty coloured spread sheets are going to tell my bees what the plan for the coming season is going to be! So with my finest grumpy old man muttering I have shoved a handful of excel spreadsheets into the shredder and have made a new one, its quite simply a blank piece of paper!
My Plan For The 2024 Beekeeping Season
So that is my plan for 2024, a blank sheet. With a day off work on Friday (15-3-24) and the promise of some warm weather (if the Met office have it right) I will load up the van and head out to see how the bees are getting on. From here the decision will be made on what hives we will set up as double brood. The decision to manipulate the bees will be made from what they are telling me to do, not from a piece of paper. The main change I have made is I will no longer plan the season on paper but have a goal for the season in the back of my mind.
Just this weekend gone (9-03-24) while out hefting my hives, I ended up packing up the second failed hive of the winter. The hive was a mid season split with a mated queen introduced and accepted. It built up well and went into winter with plenty of stores. Looking back now, (o hindsight you beautiful thing) the hive had good weight, but there lays the first of my rookie beekeeping mistakes. The weight of the hive had not lowered. Simply, there were no bees to use up the stores. There were 3 hives that had the same batch of queens and luckily the third has a clear crown board, the unlucky part is they look to be dwindling in numbers, but fingers crossed.
The REAL Beekeeping Mistake
The real rookie beekeeping mistake that I know I have made is that I never made up any over winter nucs. I have 2 poly nucs sitting in the bee shed! Why did it not cross my mind to make up some over winter nucs! My mentor told me, the books told me, we all know it, you will lose colonies over winter. But as beekeepers, the counter to this is to carry over winter nucs to fill the gaps. People keep telling me the art of beekeeping is maintaining a constant number of hives, but at the moment it feels that getting a sufficient number of colonies through winter to achieve my plans......sorry, goal, is currently my challenge. But that is enough of me being a grumpy old git!
So this Friday (15/3) with my blank piece of paper in hand (and of course a flask of coffee) I shall head out with a fully loaded van of equipment and tools. One of the apiaries needs a strim and a few hedges cutting back, along with the patio slabs that the hives sit on need levelling up. If the weather holds then hopefully I can get a little look in a few hives and start the season off.
The Met Office Got It Wrong
As always the Met office had it wrong, Friday was cold and windy, but luckily I had had the Thursday off. With 3 of my strongest hives now on Double brood, I have a feeling that the season for me is under way. The hive that was a concern to me still has a queen and there is 2 frames with BIAS, I will take this as a small victory. Most of the other colonies are at 4 frames of BIAS, I call it 4 frames, but she is only laying on 2/3 of each of the frames.
With the weather all over the place in the SE, it would come across that a steady day time temp of 10-12C with drizzle will be the normal for this spring. The bees have continued to build up well, along with eating there way through fondant! This led to my next head scratching moment. I was due to go away on holiday for a week for the second week of April. By this point it was the 30th March and the hives were now on 6-7 frames of brood and covering 80% of the frames, if not more. With a glance at the 10 day forecast, I made the call and the first supers of the season went on.
So I had made my dismission and now I had to live with it, more to the point my wife had to put up with me all holiday checking the weather back home and grumbling. With all the possible scenarios of what could go wrong going around in my head. The main concern was that one of the colony's would starve out in my absence but while I was in the Lake District getting wet and blown around, the bees were enjoying a short break in the weather.
Back To The Beekeeping
Within an hour of arriving home I was in my bee suit and was having a look at the Double brood colony in my garden. I have followed the BMH recommended program for building up for splits. But being a newbie, I find myself constantly worrying that they will swarm. The top box has bees covering all 11 frames and brood on 9 frames. The lower box has a very good covering of bees and stores. So, going by the rule ''don't let your bees touch the walls or roof'' I worry that I'm going to get a call that my bees are in someone's garden! Assurances have been given to me from BMH that if they still have room below then they will be fine.
Good Job I Planned Ahead
The following morning I headed out to check the out apiaries. It's a good job that I loaded up with supers! All of the colonies were over 80% covering the one super that was on. Being honest, I was probably a day or two late putting on the second super. So as of the 13th April, all but 2 colony's have 2 supers on. With the queen running out of space due to the amount off brood and nectar coming in, I hope that I have made the right decisions!
No More Beekeeping Mistakes
I have a number of strong colonies and lots of double brood hives, do I take some splits out of my strongest to help avoid swarming? Will doing this now affect the yield of honey that I get? Do I stick to the plan and fully break down the double brood for splits... or both? Stay tuned for the next update and hopefully there wont be any more beekeeping mistakes!
