Friday 21 sep 2018

Hello readers,

Today I've been to a meating of the local beekeepers club at Roeselare, called 'de mandelbie'.
It was a round of questions collected over a period of time answered by a pannel, or any member present to be fair.

There was a friendly atmosphere and I was pleased to find at least one beekeeper admitting to be treatment free in front of the entire group.  The consensus in the entire group remained he was a lucky exception on the rule and others should keep treating.  Theory crafting went on a bit on why he was able to sustain his apiary with 9 hives and only 2 losses over a period of 5 years.  And one voice offered that his local weather kept his bees from producing a large brood chamber, and thus kept the varroa at a minimum.  Soon another voice pitched in, not yet accusing, but still offering the idea he was spreading varroa distructor to nearby hives.  Another voice came up with the idea other pollinators also had varroa - and I thought but didn't give voice to my thoughts, that as long as the beekeeping comunity doesn't treat at the exact same time with the exact same methods/products it doesn't matter anyway - and thus re-infecion was going to happen anyway.

The topic was closed soon after and other topics were adressed.  If you're a beekeeper I'm sure you can picture the conversation; A questions was asked, and ten, if not more different ways to offer a sollution to the problem were offered.  One beekeeper in particular was very loud and sure of his ways but I doubt he got a lot of foothold with the others in the room that voiced different oppinions.

All in all it was a nice first time experience for me and I can't say I learnt much, or anything at all. Time flew by (the event started at 7:30 pm and was ended at 10:40!)  At the very least I got to talk to the members and the board of the association and pass along my information (Since when paying for my membership and sending out emails didn't result in any replies - the email adress I found and used for the secretary of the club was outdated and no longer in use.)
I also received the local 'magazine' and have yet to dive in.

On to the

Weather Report:

My last weather report dates from september 4th.  I'm not planning on covering every day from there on to this one but to summarize, the days are growing short, and the temperatures are dropping accordingly.  Last weak we had a small hiccup where the mercury rised again till about 25°C but all in all we had around 20°C max and around 10°C low. Exceptions here and there (during the night) might have occurred.  The amount of showers started rising slowly, very slowly.  There were about
4 days where I can recall rain.  The 5th, 7th and 12th of september only had low amounts of water falling out of the sky, today however we had a good amount of rain during the morning.

Hive Report: 

As the days are growing shorter and winter is creeping closer there is less and less I'm inclined to do.  I did ponder on opening a hive to see how it was doing, but decided against it.

Across all my hives I noticed the same: good pollen coming in, colours ranging from orange through yellow to almost white.

At my stand at home with the: Simplex Nuc and The SS 1 2018 I can say the bees aren't expanding, nor decreasing in number of frames they occupy (spotted through watching via the windows in the back of my hives)  As I put this up here I remembered that I filmed my SS 1 2018 and posted the video on youtube!  I'll put it underneath here for you to see, if you so desire.  It's a long video with nothing more than the activity near the hive enterance.  Enjoy, or skip, whatever you like!

At my 2nd stand I have seen good activity, but I didn't check on them as frequently as I do with the hives in my own back yard.  I did notice the vegetation is growing underneath and around the hives, so I'm going to have to remedy that.  Walking around the hive didn't cause any problems, but then I stayed a while to see what was going on in front of the hives and got chased off.  I walked away, waited a bit and went back in with my phone in hand to film the action.  The result is in the video below, a very shaky video with some cool close ups of my beard hairs.  I thought it was funny so posted it on YouTube even though it doesn't make much sense.

So in the video you can spot, furthest away, the TO 2 2018;  Next to that is the 6-frame SD 2018, next to that an empty simplex deep and then the other 6 frame TO 1 2018.  Even closer but not in view at the beginning of the video is a three deep simplex hive that is empty.

That's about all there is to say in the hive report!  Let's hope the nasty mood is only that and not an attitude that'll continue into 2019.

Swarm Calls:

I may have said this before, but I'll say it again: I've put up my number for swarm calls and I can't  believe how many people don't know the difference between bumble bees, honey bees or even wasps.  In Belgium the local fire department is in charge of exterminating wasps.  This year they had so many calls I think they grew tired of doing so.  This one call I got isn't the first, and I doubt it'll be the last I get from people that were referred to me (or a beekeeper in general) by the fire department without them checking at the location what insect resides there.  Usually it's how they ask the caller stuff that causes them to refer them in the first place.  Let me give an example of a call to the emergency dispatch or the local fire department :

Operator: Fire department here, what's the issue.
Caller: I have wasps or something on my property.
Operator: Ok, and where do you live, where are those insects please?
Caller: gives adres (it's needed by the operator to fill out a form after a call)
Operator: Ok, now are you sure it's wasps?
Caller: Well, I don't know...
Operator: Are they brownish?
Caller: (thinking they have to say yes to get the firemen to do their job, instead of speaking the truth) Oh, eh, yes, it's hard to see, but I think so.
Operator: Well, if it's a darker colour, it's (honey) bees, you'll need to call a beekeeper.  The fire department can't exterminate bees, not even if they are bothering you ... they're a protected species.
Caller: Oh ah, I see...
Operator: have you got something to write a number down, I'm going to give you the number / or I'll give your details to a beekeeper and ask them to come over to take a look.
Caller: Thank you! (calls or awaits the arrival/call of the beekeeper)

In the best case, the beekeeper gets more details and can prevent driving out there for nothing.

Some pictures I took trying to find out for myself what I had on my hands on a roof here:

Now it might be just me but given the time of year I think it's safer to assume you don't have honey bees on your hands.  Sure, it could be a bumble bee nest if it's in the ground, but still, I don't do that...  Most likely it's wasps.  Why the operator steers the conversation (not this example in perticular) towards bees and beekeepers, or why the caller gives false information is beyond me and beside the point I'm going to make here.

As I see it there's opportunity here.  Now I won't take it so far as to start an extermination firm.  But I might offer the caller to come over for a small amount of money. (Enough, but not more, to cover my expenses to get there) Unless of course there are actually bees there, in which case the bees should cover my expenses.  Or I could offer the caller to send me some pictures / a video of said nest to avoid costs alltogether.  In case of wasps I'll always refer back to the fire department.  I'm not going to kill insects.  In case of bumble bees, provided I have the time, I might offer to go over for a fixed amount of money to relocate them.  Of course in the case of bees I'll go over to see how easy or difficult it might be to get to them.  For trap-outs or cut-outs that I see managable I might work anywhere from 'for free' to 'the amount of expenses' I make.  For a ligit swarm call I'll always work free of charge. At least that's how I see it now.  Food for thought over winter...

To Do List:

1. I have put some content out, but still nothing with the 'older' footage I have around, I'll do that asap.
2. Keep feeding?  I stopped.  I collected the feeder with mold, washed it out and stopped feeding that hive.  I only fed the Simplex Nuc one more time after that, and haven't since.  I'll preserve my sugarpatties for early spring IF and only IF I have a hive in trouble that could be saved or when I make splits.
3. Planning for next season is starting to take form.  I'm pretty sure to start queen rearing with the hopkins method and have contacted a handy man for that in the hopes he can construct me a super where I can rest a frame in sideways that should provide the eggs/young larvae to make queens with.

So that's it.  I'm going to collect the video's I havent used yet and sort through them, hopefully I'll also get to edit a bit before I go to bed (as I see we're well into 22nd september already)

 Bob Out

Saterday 08 sep: The 2018 bee convention in Malle

Hello readers,


Nothing new here around my apiary, but...

I went to a bee convention.

I probably didn't as much pictures as I supposed to for the blog, maybe next time I'll do a better job at it.
In the first picture you can see an up close of the goodie bag we received upon entering the convention.  (It's in dutch so don't try to make too much sense of it but here's what's on it:) On the top you can see the logo's of the two beekeepers organisations that helped to put this 'congress' together.  It's the AVIB (which stands for Antwerpse Vereniging voor Imker Belangen); An Antwerp Assosiation to protect the interest of beekeepers. and the 'Koninklijke Vlaamse Imkersbond' or Royal Flemish Beekeepersassosciation.
In the middle is the logo of the convention itself and beneath it are two government agencies that sponsored the event. (The Province of Antwerp and the department of agriculture and fishing)

Inside the bag was a button that could be exchanged for a lunch.  A ticket to collect a honney beer after the event was over and some pamflets and information on beekeeping in general along with the roster of the event.
The theme was 'the future of beekeeping; looking forward'.

It started of with a reception (free coffe, tea or water) to give people the time to arrive at the event.  The second picture there shows the amount of people gathered half an hour before the event started.

There was a stage and plenty of seats for the crowd and the first event was a speaker: Professor Hans Van Dijck.  He talked about insects in general under the title: The world through facet eyes: psychologie of insects in a humanized environment.  I must admit I dozed off (too much beer and not enough sleep the night before) but what I did pick up from it was very interesting.  If I have to summarize the speech to a conclusion I'd say we are fritting away at the habitat of others and in the long run that will cost us.

The second speaker, Thomas Van Pelt, a multicultural Belgian (I think) now keeping bees in Germany on the same hivebodies as me (Zander).  He adressed 4 topics and started off with modernisation of beekeeping.  He sees it as the future and I must say, using 2 buzzboxes already of my own, I can only agree.  The topic that resonated with me the most was his explanation of why chemical or biochemical treatments are only good for short term sollutions.  He didn't take it as far as me, who's trying to go treatment free, but hinted that Science had to help out with the genetic line of the varroa resistend bee and untill such time we should only use 'biotechnical interference' in the hive to suppress the varroa presence.  Another topic was the environment again.  Where do our bees (or other pollinators) get their food?  What do they give in return and how do we treat that environment.  He wants to return to a biological agricultural way of life.  Sure some numbers show that with treating production goes up 51% but without bees it goes down 76% !!  And treating = killing bees.  That was the jest of it anyway.

After Thomas it was time for some well deserved nutrition.  Belgian fries with steak and vegetables and time to take a stroll between the many stands of associations and vendors that came to the event.  One table picked my interest since it was the stand of honeybee valley.  And sure enough, they showed the pictures of the Asian hornets nest in Waregem that I talked about earlier on my blog!  I grabbed a folder but have yet to dig in to the details of how to protect yourself from those insects - and then I haven't decided to agree with the methods yet!  On the pamflet is this picture:

Ment to help you identify what kind of insect you're looking at in front of your hive in comparison to what a honeybee looks like.

After that I went to witness the panel discussion with members of the government and different organisations working for a better environment or that have connections with beekeeping.  There were 6 in total.  Dirk Degraaf from Honneybee valley, a woman from biological agriculture, a man representing nature (his organisation wants to protect all that is green on a local level), the local politian of agriculture (ao), the chairman of the royal flemish beekeepingassociation and Thomas Van Pelt as a beekeeper.  The moderator was a civil servant in the department of agriculture and he promissed to take what he heard to the ministers cabinet.

During the entire event (and I should've taken pictures here) there was a competition going on for the best label for honey.  There were about 30 entries and the one I voted for came in 3rd place (darnit).

I also took a good look at a showcase hive (that had a few bees escape from it)

That's all folks!

Bob Out

Tuesday 04 sep 2019

Hello readers,

Only here to update the blog a bit, I didn't really work my bees.  Only thing I crossed off my to do list is cleaning out the feeder from the TO 2 2018.

I'm uploading a youtube video as we speak.  Nothing special, and rather long. (1h48min if I'm not mistaken)  It's a GoPro looking at the entrance of my two hives on Stand number 1.  You can see (if you decide to watch the thing - good luck with that - how bees start gathering in front of the hives for orientation flights.

 Weather Report:  

The Weather since august 21st has become what I'd call 'normal' for our region.  If you want a day by day detailed report, read on, if not, skip !
22 August: Temperatures up to 25°C and as cold as 14°C at night - no rain.
23 August: Up to 23°C and as cold as 14°C at night - no rain.
24 August:  Around 20°C max and 8,5°C at the coldest - showers durign the night!
25 August: Showers continuing till 4 in the morning, dry after that with up to 19°C as the warmest!
26 August: Again 19°C was the warmest, 8,5°C the coldest. Rain with pauzes from 4 p.m. till midnight.
27 August: In the morning it was still raining till 5 a.m. after that it cleared up. Again 19°C tops, warmer night with 13°C.
28 August: Mercury rising till 22°C and didn't drop below 12°C. No rain today.
29 August: Showers spread out during the day cooling the air to about 17°C max but no cooler than 10°C
30 August: Rising temperatures again reaching 22°C and 10°C as a low.  Shortly after midnight it stopped raining and only a small curtain of rain fell down in the afternoon.
31 August: No rain; Max 21°C and around 10°C at midnight
01 September: 22°C tops and Mercury dropping to 6° around 7-8 a.m.  No rain.
02 September: 24°C - 7°C - no rain.
03 September: Cooler again with 21°C at its peak and 10°C on the other side. No rain.
Today 04 September: 21°C and 10°C - No Rain. (see yesterday?)

Hive Report: 

Stand number 1:

Simplex Nuc: Activity near the hive seems good, the number of visiting wasps has dropped.  As for pollen being brought in I can see White, green-ish and orange colours.

PC 1 2018: The 6-framer is still in place, I haven't opened it up, but I'm sure that all bees have worked their way into other hives in the neighbourhood.  Any activity here is due to robbing. (both bees and wasps)  I shall no longer mention the PC 1 2018.  I do hope to catch a swarm next year to shake into this hive.

SS 1 2018:  I've reduced the feeding.  I took the boxes appart to remove the newspaper, but it was all cleaned up IN the hive.  The rest got stuck in between or on the top bars of the frames.  The bees were not in a good mood (I got 3 stings in the belly - yeah, my shirt lifted as I stooped over to put the top box down) I decided to put the boxes back together, newspaper leftovers and all and try again later.

Stand number 2:

TO 2 2018:  I removed the feeder and haven't put it back yet.  There were some bees in the feeder as I removed it, shook them off with no problems.  Not a single wasps to see (anywhere in the stand).  As it was late in the evening there wasn't much activity going on, but there was a steady drip of returning bees and some foragers took off to go about their business.  Not going to open up this hive till next spring.

SD 1 2018:  Comparable activity here as with the TO 2 2018 - even though this hive is only fitted with 6 frames (where the TO 2 2018 has 20 in 2 supers).  I hope they get through winter ok.

TO 1 2018: This nuc is still packed with bees.  If there is one hive I expect to swarm first after winter, this'll be the one.

To do list:

1. Get some video footage up on youtube.
2. keep feeding till I run out of sugar.
3. Plan for next season. 

I have been looking up some information on queen rearing, and I might go with the poor man's method! (The Hopkins Methode)  But I'm not sure yet.  So no promisses.  I do hope to film some more for you guys!

 Bob Out