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River Mole Apiary

Colony Updates Over Winter In 2025

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Snowdrops Out
At River Mole Apiary

I’ll post updates to the intermittent activity I undertake with the colonies over Winter. The main items will be feeding with fondant and checking for woodpeckers that have visited in the past.

The weather in November and December was mild and the bees were flying on the warmer days until mid-November. January has started off very cold and wet.

  • 16th January – hefted the hives and lifted the crownboards. Looks like Honeydew & Indigo are both  small, Indigo just 2 seams of bees, and would be surprised to see it survive despite having plenty of stores. Decided to feed 0.5Kg slabs of Ambrosia fondant to 4 of the 7. Blue, Flax, Honeydew and Indigo.
  • 25th January – Checked a week later and see that Flax has already finished the Ambrosia, while Blue hasn’t touched theirs.
  • 31st January – added 300g more fondant to Flax.
  • 2nd February – Looked at Honeydew and Indigo & only Indigo has touched the Ambrosia.

  • 4th February – Temperatures slightly higher 8ºC – 9ºC and bees are flying and bringing in pollen (crocus?). Jade is a dead out, seems to have dwindled with the remaining bees dead on floor and frame, no brood so could be due to poorly mated queen. Hive activity rankings: Flax, Cyan, Blue and then Aqua
  • 25th February – Weather warming up to 9ºC – 11ºC but very rainy. Fed all colonies: Flax, Cyan, Blue with 1Kg of Ambrosia, Honeydew & Indigo with 1/2Kg Ambrosia and Aqua with fondant.

Honey Packaged Up for Sale

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Weekly Inspection 4th August

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Weather: very warm with temperatures 22°C to 26°C. Set to continue fine.

Forage: Rosebay Willowherb finishing, golden rod, hibiscus, Himalayan Balsam and Rubeckia

Activity looks to be slowing down, not much new stores coming into the supers. Will start to inspect fortnightly rather than weekly.

Apidea has a queen but no eggs and very  few bees.

 

 

Weekly Inspection – 27th July

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weather: temperatures between 20°C – 22°C. Much warmer and sunnier. Set to continue for the next 10 days.

Forage: continues with Ragwort, Himalayan Balsam,  Rosebay Willowherb and Veronica

Colonies seem to be doing much better and there is still nectar coming in. The frames in the supers are starting to be capped, but I need to rearrange the frames to ensure that all get drawn out.

The Apidea that I made up from Flax has a queen that has emerged but very few bees. So decided to top up with more bees from Flax. They have drawn two of the frames and stored some nectar, Probably too early for the Queen to have mated

 

 

Aster

Weekly Inspection – 18th July

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Aster

Weather: Temperatures 17ºC -22ºC but with lots of rain and heavy showers most days. Set to improve.

Forage: Ragwort, Buddleia, Rosebay Willowherb, Himalayan Balsam, and Golden Rod just starting.

Not sure what’s happening with the Flax colony. There were sealed QCs, torn down QCs and 1 charged cell. But there also appears to be eggs and larvae. The sealed QCs don’t look to be viable – candled one and it had a small undeveloped larva. However, decided to make up and Apidea with the other one. Left bees in for 2 days, but most have left and probably returned back to Flax. So perhaps the Buckfast queen is still present but took time to come into lay?

Supers being worked and starting to get filled up.

Weekly inspection – 10th July

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Weather: changeable with showers, temperatures 17°C to 20°C.

Forage: Buddleia, Ragwort, Rosebay Willowherb and privet

The quen from Flax that I banked and stored in cyan  perished. Not sure if she starved or was killed, but from the state of her looks to have happened early on..