Another Strange Week.
I took comfort in this poem the moment Tricia O’ Dwyer sent me the first few lines. Then last week I heard Fergal Keane reading it on Radio 4 and it resonated even more with me. It is by Irish poet John O’Donohue, and I’m sharing it today because I hope that you can also lie low. By the way, Fergal Patrick Murphy Keane OBE (born 6 January 1961) is an Irish Foreign correspondent with BBC News, and an author. For some time, Keane was the BBC’s correspondent in South Africa. He is the nephew of Irish playwright, novelist and essayist John B. Keane. I’ve been following his career since my time in Hong Kong when he was working out there.
“This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.
Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.”
― John O’Donohue
Back to the Wild Bees.
Since finding this wild colony of free-living bees last February, I’ve been monitoring their progress closely on my countless walks past their larch tree home. Although I saw a fair amount of activity on 20th January at 11 degrees Celsius, I didn’t see any pollen going in till this week. Last year they were more active and prolific and so I wonder if perhaps they didn’t fare so well over this past winter. Yellow pollen was being carried on 7th April but, since it was 12-14 degrees C, I was expecting to see more traffic in and out. So, I’m not totally confident that they are thriving. The guards were defensive one day but it was windy when I sat on the wall nearby drinking tea from my flask. An angry guard fatally dive-bombed and landed in my hot drink.
The Plan.
We will position another bait hive in a couple of weeks and see what happens. For the official wild colony survey, I will record the colony as being alive at the end of winter because I have seen pollen going in and can assume that the queen is laying. Otherwise bees going in could have been robber bees from another colony. I will record again after swarm season is over, then again at the end of the season as autumn approaches.
Home Apiary.
It’s not all bad socially distancing at home with the family together and I’ve scored a new assistant and apprentice beekeeper. We had a really warm day last Sunday and so the colonies were all given fresh brood boxes and floors. They were assessed very quickly and queen marking left until I see drones flying: just in case it goes pear-shaped and the queen gets killed.
The colony above has a double brood box with 7 brood frames and large insulated dummy boards filling each box. This is the system used by Fife beekeeper Enid Brown and I’m keen to try it out.
Thriving Colony.
This colony started as a built-up nucleus very kindly donated by my friends Stewart and Christine Smith at the end of last season. Cutting back my colony numbers last year coincided with a poor season for queen mating and I was left potentially stuck until my friends helped me out by providing 2 nuclei. This colony was making comb and filling it inside the bag of fondant last week. When I checked the single brood box, I found brood and wall to wall stores so it was time for a second brood box. We are feeding them syrup to assist with comb drawing (1kg white granulated sugar to 1 litre of water) in a contact feeder. I’ve used a plastic food container with holes made in the lid using a hot needle.
We’ve placed the loose tie down in front of the hive to avoid tripping on it (thank you Margaret Forrest for this good tip). However, the hive is positioned too close to the hedge to place roof directly behind us and we haven’t given ourselves a clear working space around the hive. This was a quick check on feed and not an inspection so it was ok this time but we will place the roof well to the side for next inspection giving us a safe working space around the hive.
Wasp Deterrent.
Last season, I experimented with Vita-Europe’s Api-shield which was designed for keeping Asian hornet (Vespa velutina) out of our hives. It works for wasps as well but I found as many dead bees in the trap below the hive and was not convinced that they were robber bees. It was made of flimsy pine and not suitable to over-winter on, but it was too late in the season to disturb the colony for removal. So, I’m trialling Fred Mollison’s entrances and the bees adapted quickly to the small entrance above the little porch.
Wasps are not supposed to find their way into the hive and the guard bees have a small entrance to defend. The bees can lounge on the porch with a “sundowner” on nice evenings, and be sheltered on windy days so it should be a “win win” situation. Keep tuned for further reports.
I like the look of the new floor/entrances, Ann. I’d be very interested to hear how you get on, and I might even be coaxed into building something like that myself, to see how my bees fare with it, too 🙂
If it works Alistair I will be very pleased because the wasps were really troublesome here last year. I saw my first one of the season yesterday.
I am interested in the insulated dummy boards that you are installing in your hives, following the design of Enid Brown. Could you describe these in more detail in a future blog? Sounds like a simple way to provide a colony with a well-insulated nest cavity.
I will do, Tom. Currently gathering information. I didn’t make mine since I lack the required skills.