HARVEST!

Each hive has produced one super (ten frames) of surplus honey this year, and I've been waiting for the right time to take them off the hives.  Last weekend was fairly dry, weather-wise, so I figured it was probably my best chance to get harvest done.

This year, I needed to be extra-careful with hygiene arrangements because of COVID-19 so as well the the usual tasks of thoroughly cleaning down the utility room and laundering the aprons and hats, we also wore clean masks throughout to minimise any transmission risk.  I'm also going to quarantine the sealed jars for 14 days, just to be sure that neither of us were infected when we did the extraction.

Mrs Beekeeper was on hand to uncap the combs, while I worked the extractor.  Here's a couple of action shots of us hard at work:

The final haul is 7 jars from Athene's hive and 9 jars from Ottoline's bees.  Not my best year ever, but at least it will be enough for a few stocking fillers at Christmas.  And it's always satisfying to have a little reward at the end of the season.

Bees On The Move

Earlier this year I was speaking with local bee enthusiast Joel, who has a big garden in Southdown.  Joel was keen to have some bees in his garden, and we’ve been discussing the best way to make that happen.  So, a couple of weekends ago I went over to do a site survey.

The garden has a hazel thicket at the north end, which should work well to keep the bees separate from the rest of the garden.  So, to get things started, we’ve agreed to move the nucleus into a small clearing by the hazel so Joel and his family can see how they get on with them.

Last Saturday was moving day. so I waited until dusk (bees need to be moved after sunset), closed up the entrance block, applied liberal quantities of duct tape, and secured the nucleus with a ratchet strap:

Then I carried the nuc to the car, and hit my first snag - if I put it in the boot, there was too much space either side and it was likely to wobble, and probably fall over, once I started moving.  So I ended up wedging it - very carefully - into the passenger footwell, and then set off on the short drive up to Joel's garden.

Joel and his family greeted me at the other end, eager to see the box of bees arriving.  It was dark by this point, but fortunately Joel was better prepared that I was, and had a couple of head torches and a wheelbarrow standing by.  We wheeled the nucleus to the other end of the garden, and placed it in the new spot that I'd prepared.  Then, everybody else stood well back while I opened the entrance block.  The bees were surprisingly well behaved (I always expect them to be in a bit of a mood after a trip in the car).  A couple of guard bees flew out to let me know I wasn't welcome, but the others were happy enough staying inside until morning.

The next day, Joel was feeling brave enough to check out the front of the hive and sent me this photo:

Not much happening there, though he did update me later in the day to let me know that a lot more bees had started flying in and out, and checking out their new surroundings!  So far, they seem to be settling in well, and - apart from maybe feeding them a few pints of sugar syrup - I can pretty much leave them alone until the spring.

As for the hives... well, it's very nearly harvest...