Time to heft your hives!

Hi Buzzers - this very (comparatively) mild weather will keep your bees more active and so they'll
be reducing the stores more quickly.
Decisions need to be made about how much food they have AND if they are able to reach it.
Bees in cluster tend to move upwards to find stores rather than sideways.

You can quickly lift the quilt and shine a torch down between the combs to see where they are.
Or, as above pic., you can insert the varroa tray (if you have removed it for the winter) and after a few
days check where the hive debris is. Above you can see the cappings dropped by the bees as they unseal
the stores.  This info. + the hive weight will enable me to decide whether to feed them with candy and if so
where to place it.
Remember honey bees can tolerate cold, dry conditions but not moisture.  My hives are double-walled so
condensation tends not to be a problem.  However I do check the roof and insulation.

Left pic. is inside a very damp roof most likely caused by driving rain, not condensation.
Right pic. shows a very dry roof which has been dried against a radiator
in my house.  Having a spare roof is handy as I can work along the row
of hives exchanging wet for dry!
Good idea is to register (free) on BeeBase to be kept informed on
various issues eg. colony threatening pests and diseases.
(online www.nationalbeeunit.com) Next "When to inspect".
  

Honey Cake 2

Birthday boy liked the honey cake but thought it would be moister with honey/butter icing sooooo.....

QBzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Bellingham Christmas Fair

Redesdale beekeepers - sorry to miss our last meeting at the First & Last.  I enjoyed a night-out at
The Errington Arms with friends from the Border Reiver days. It was a Ratpack night - great music
and very good food too. BUT no Bourbon and no Scottish malts either!

I'm selling candles at Bellingham Late night Christmas Shopping - I think this will be the last Fair before I go into hibernation. If anyone wants any candles please let me know.

It's Senior Drone's birthday tomorrow so QB made him
a Honey cake from the recipe on an earlier Blog (19/11/2013)

Hope it tastes OK.  This is my first attempt.

Stil buzzzzzzzing QB

BBKA Survey: Honeybees warm to their work.

Headline : Honeybees warm to their work 

If you go on to www.bbka.org.uk you'll find some interesting highlights from 2013 Survey.
For example : Honey production rose to 24.7lbs/hive in 2013 compared to 8.1lbs last year.
(3x last year's but still below average )
20years ago you would expect to get 40lbs/hive.
In 2013 1:10 beekeepers took no honey crop. Some decided to leave all the stores in the hive
in preparation for a potentially bad, long winter 2013/2014.

Weren't we lucky?  Those black, hardy northern workers
managed 70lbs each productive hive. QB left a full super on each
hive + whatever was in the broodbox + all those kgs of sugar syrup
we fed them in Sept.
It's still vital to regularly heft the hives as winter deepens/lengthens, making decisions about fondant when the weight is estimated as
alright or low.


If you are thinking of giving gifts with a honeybee theme this Christmas try The Pollen Basket , the BBKA
Official Shop.  There are some OK things, depending on your taste for the 'corny'!!
QB XXX

Not much Forage

A brisk walk around my frost-bound garden soon revealed, well, very little of interest to a honeybee!

The mahonia is just coming into full bloom - for the first year as it's only 2 years old.  Bees love this but of course they're all tucked up snug in their cosy double-walled WBC homes. Air temp. is 2C and Big Cheviot is covered in snow.
Still QB is happily buzzing around!

Recipe for Honey Cake

HONEY CAKE : to make if you're lucky enough to have any honey left!

225G butter ;  250g honey;  100g dark muscovado sugar;  3 lg. eggs beaten; 300g S.R.flour.

Preheat oven to 160C (140c fan)

Grease and line 20cm. cake tin.
Cut butter into pieces and drop into med. pan with the honey and sugar.
Melt slowly over low heat.
Then inc. heat and boil for 1 min.
Leave to cool.
When cool beat eggs into honey mixture.
Beat flour into egg and honey mixture to a smooth batter.
Pour into tin and cook for 1-11/2 hrs. Test with skewer - done when comes out clean
and cake is golden brown and springs back when pressed.
Turn cake out onto wire rack and glaze with 2-3 tbs. melted honey.

Thanks Jean for this recipe.

HBKA at Tyne Valley G.C.(Mickley)

This HBKA stand was set up in unison with Broomley 1st School.  The children now have bee colonies and are learning about bee-keeping.  There were some lovely crafted items made by the children. When we got there the GC staff were really helpful.  We set about reorganising the stand as it was difficult to see the gifts and we needed more space for our candles, honey and polish.  We eventually set up a second table to try to solve the space issue.

There was a great deal of interest from the Christmas Fair visitors.
They loved The Honey cake made by Philip's wife as well as sampling the honey. Sales of candles went well and many visitors were interested in how they were made as well as being curious about the other  uses of beeswax. We talked to a lot of people about the pleasure and importance of keeping bees. Generally a very good day - fulfilling the educational  purpose of the HBKA stand.

The reindeer put on a good show too, although this one, Doughnut was in a very grumpy mood - typical blokey attitude as Christmas approaches!  He decided to rub the velvet off his magnificent antlers and treated the public to bloody antlers with streamers of velvet hanging off in ribbons. Try explaining that to the kids.

For us mere humans a tiring day but worth it. Tynedale Valley GC is really well worth visiting.
QB still buzzing