Apiary 16th. July

Mission accomplished.  This evening we cleared a loaded super of its bees and we have honey to extract which we will do next Wednesday evening at Brooklyn House.

If you didn’t watch “Hive Alive” on BBC2 last night, its well worth picking it up on i-player. It was disappointing only in the fact that none of the many bees on camera managed to sting Packham. That apart it gave an excellent visual insight into the life cycle of a honey bee colony.

The waggle dance was given some air time. A couple of years ago I attended a lecture given in Staunton Village Hall By Margaret Courvilion from Sussex University on her research into decoding the waggle dance. She gave the same lecture to the Houses of Parliament and it is available on you tube – takes just 13 mins and its fascinating stuff.

Spent 5 minutes watching our bees tooing and froing from our hives this evening. They are very busy. It is a good year weather and forage wise, the best I have seen. I am told to expect a cold winter, so it will be necessary in early autumn to make sure our colonies are prepared to give the best possible chances of being viable next spring.