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The wasps came out in force in August. I dispatched one nest but couldn't find the others. It got so bad that hive 7 just gave up defending. The wasps know which hive to target. I fitted a home-made conduit entrance which had the bees puzzled for about 1-2 hours and then wasps gave up and bees found their 2 new entrances. This is a very successful method of stopping wasp predation so I’ll maybe make a few more. I make no claim to originality as I saw these on a retailers web site and realised the simplicity of manufacture; especially as I had lengths of the plastic trunking already in the workshop

Anti-wasp entrance

Having been successful with the wasp problem I replaced the original entrance block. Two days later and they were being robbed by bees. These could have come from my own hives or from the known feral colonies in the houses opposite. I resorted to an entrance-block change again but this time it was the single-bee size. Poor hive 7 just don’t know how to defend themselves.

Anti-robbing entrance

The bad news continued when I discovered sac brood and chronic bald brood in three colonies. A chat with an ex seasonal inspector and I decided to isolate the hives for the time being. One managed to clear itself successfully after judicious use of tweezers to remove the sac brood larvae. The other two remain in the corner of the apiary waiting to see if they survive the winter.

Harvest-wise, my dire predictions were proved unfounded. The borage came on flower late and the Debden Green colonies started foraging keenly. Not only that, but as the bee flies it made the Debden Green fields with flying distance of the home apiary. Much of what they foraged was used up in flight but they were definitely bringing it home. On top of this, the lateness of flowering and the weather meant that the farmer postponed the swathing until late August giving the bees another bonus. This all managed to redress the balance and I had one of my best years ever

As the bees have cleaned-down the supers, several supers have gone via the workshop. Over the years, the supers I made at Ted Hoopers woodwork evenings, not to mention the old ‘Taylor’s of Welwyn’ supers, have gradually had their corners worn away until they are prone to wasp intrusion. I have rebated the offending corners and inserted hardwood slips to extend their lives.

Hardwood corner repair

My first honey extraction was very late this year due to the absence of rape honey. The field was right on my doorstep but no nectar.

That’s three years in a row with rape within easy flying and all they’ve harvested is pollen. I went to speak with John, the farmer, to see if he’d changed his seed variety recently but “No, I’ve been using the same variety for the last three years.”; Campus. A quick search revealed that research done by Newcastle and Exeter Universities found that modern hybrid rape, Campus in particular yielded nectar little better than water. The bees know best; not worth the energy.

It’s ironic actually that said farmer gets a subsidy for sowing pollinator strips along his headlands but can then sow a distinctly pollinator-unfriendly crop in the remaining 35 acres.

On a similar note, another long-standing member of Saffron Walden Beepers was talking with a farming friend who was disappointed that he could no longer appreciate the once beautiful aroma of his field beans. This beekeeper had moved some hives onto his huge field which he reckoned should yield in the region 1,000 lbs of bean honey. He got 150 lbs. Yes, the farmer had changed to a hybrid variety.

Who is to blame? Is it the farmers or the seed merchants?

Queen mating has been a problem this year with the loss of seven queens failing to return from mating flights. This has left me on the verge of a problem but I should just have enough 2018 queens to go into 2019.

The last two weeks of July have seen a terrific mystery flow and this has helped tremendously to overcome the oil-seed-rape loss; not so good for creamed honey but it is at least a harvest.

This mystery flow finished on the 29th. On the 30th I saw intense robbing of hive 1. I removed the entrance block and replaced it with one which had only a one bee-width hole in it and leaned a large sheet of glass on the front of the hive.

 

Single hole entrance block

By the time I had gone round all the other hives and narrowed their entrances down to winter-width (about 40mm) the intensity of the raiding had decreased noticeably. The hive inspections I had planned for that day were put on hold. Opening up a hive under these circumstances was only asking for trouble.