Every Day Is A School Day

- Monday 6 August 2018 -

As I write this I've had my first bee hive for just over a year. I've learned a bit in that time but there's always so much more to learn. Once you start scratching the surface of the bee world you discover there's an endless amount of stuff to learn. Despite 12 months being quite a long time in normal life, it's not a long time in beekeeping terms. The hive takes time to grow, which depends on all sorts of conditions, and you might only get your hands inside the hive on a few occasions before it's time to shut up for the winter. You can read as much as you want about the hive but it's not until you get in there that you start to build confidence handling the bees and really understand your own colony and what they like and dislike. Mine, for example, do not like plastic foundation and will avoid it at all costs.

Myself and my hive buddy went in two weeks ago to check over the hive and see how they were getting on. Previous to this I had an inspector in to give them the once over. Although they had a slow start to the season they soon picked up. They picked up so much so that an additional honey super had to be placed on top. The first box is oozing honey, which I can't wait to harvest! But during this inspection I learned one or two things. Firstly, make sure the bees have enough space to grow. The bees are very good at making use of any space available in the hive, and that could be a square inch with nothing in it. But this presents a problem, a problem which becomes very messy when you start to tidy the hive up before you put it back together. There was a lot of brace comb [honeycomb built in small pieces by bees to bridge spaces] which I removed and placed on the table opposite the hive. See the picture below. This was a mistake. The bees value their precious stores and so set about retrieving stores from the comb I'd just removed, which resulted in lots of bees everywhere! If you look at the picture above you will also notice a large piece of comb which they build down the back of the dummy board, attached to the bottom of a frame in the honey super. Removing this is a lot of wasted energy for the bees and a considerable amount of honey for them. In the picture below you can see the bees on the brace comb. I'll remember to bring a container next time and place it by the hive...

If you have any questions, comments or experiences of your own please share them below in the comments section.