Organic Honey

Spent the whole day sorting out the bees now that they are flying about like crazy. It was another wonderful day and if things stay like this for a few days, the entire countryside around here will be filled with a carpet of dandelions, the source of the main honey crop in these parts. After that there is little in the way of nectar until the June/July honeydew honey. Problem of being on grassland which is cut every few weeks for cattle feed and thus little in the way of wildflower blooms. In the towns and cities there is far more on offer during the summer!

One of the tasks was to move one of the hives from a box system I don't normally use but was forced to when I ran out of hives last summer. It's the system MrB uses, a long established one but for bee houses rather than stand alone hives. Move went well but when empty saw the Bliped object stuck to the side of the hive at the central spot where the bees congregate in winter to keep the brood warm and which one doesn't disturb.

If a foreign object gets in the hive, this may include things like mice, the bees will sting them to death and as they can#t carry them out themselves, they coat the carcass in propolis which mummifies them and prevents any disease spreading.

I have no idea whatsoever what it is - the head may not be exactly at the right angle as it fell off. To the right is a dead bee to give some idea of scale.

Then had loads of boxes to disinfect (singe with a burner) and prepare for hopefully a good harvest year. I fear my surviving three hives are rather undermanned to get the maximum out of the dandelions but hope the queens are busy producing lots of workers.

Having had a chance to examine the dead/disappeared colonies, I think much of the problem was due to my badly judging the honeydew honey season last year. This honey from aphids tree secretions rather than flowers is very high in minerals and unsuitable for the bees to store and use over the winter. It causes them to have diarrhoea and thus bacteria develop especially when it's a relatively warm winter. It is important to harvest as much as possible of this honeydew and then feed the bees on a pure sugar solution to get them over the winter.

I wonder if anyone still reading this is still in to eating honey?