Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the BeesofSpike Apiary

The old year is now fast receding into the dim and distant past.

Not receding into the dim and distant past is LandofSpike's remarkably resilient cough; a legacy of a festive season of which he spent every single day afflicted with A Ghastly Illness. 
Moan, whine etc. 

His Man Flu was so virulent that he was unable even to drag himself to the western borders of Spike Acres to monitor his bees.
So the daily Apiary observation chart, over the Christmas & New Year period, records nothing apart from a maximum temperature of 12.2C, a minimum of 3.5C and a scribbled note that it had been rainy but mild.

The bees didn't seem to mind his absence though. They just carried on without him.


Another consequence of The Great Illness, but also partly due to A General Uselessness, was the LandofSpike Christmas cards failing to meet their December deadline.
So, in time honoured fashion, the Apiary Christmas Message is making a belated, yet still heartfelt, appearance.

LandofSpike and his Bees would like to wish all you Friends of Bees a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Join them for more bee-related nonsense in the coming year.

Foraging in January

Yesterday, as reported on this blog, the bees were out and about in great numbers due to the unseasonably mild weather.

While in the Apiary, LandofSpike also noticed a few workers returning with polllen. 
There was uncertainty as to where this pollen could be coming from so early in January.

Today, the 9th of January, it's still sunny and is a pleasant 9.3C in the Apiary. 
And, with bees still in the air, the mystery of where the pollen's coming from has been solved.


It now transpires that at least some of it was coming from the thicket of Mahonia just outside the front gates of Spike Towers.
Mahonia is a dense little shrub which bears blue-black berries and is armed with some pretty spiky and tough evergreen leaves.

The council's favourite loiterer deterrent 

The local council plant Mahonia in places where it deems people need to be deterred from loitering. 
Seemingly, the raised bed area in front of Spike Towers has been designated a No-Loitering Zone as they've filled it with a healthy patch of the stuff.
This has the happy bonus of supplying the BeesofSpike with a reliable local source of winter forage.

Bright January sunshine, bright yellow flowers

At this time of year Mahonia has the most brilliant yellow blossom. It's amongst the earliest bloomers of the year.
And the BeesofSpike were all over it.

A BeesofSpike worker enjoying some January forage 

NeighbourJane takes the credit for spotting foragers industriously working the Mahonia in the sun this morning and LandofSpike was able to get some nifty photos to record the event.

Pointy leaves to deter humans, Lovely yellow flowers to attract bees

The bees don't usually have many opportunities to fly in the winter months but, if it's mild enough, Mahonia can now be officially added to the Winter Forage List.

More Winter Activity at the Apiary

It's 1 o'clock on the 8th of January. The Apiary thermometer is reading 11.9C.

And the BeesofSpike are taking another opportunity to stretch their wings.
The Apiary is alive with flying bees.

The whole colony seemed to be out enjoying the mild winter weather today

It's good to see the little fellers out in such healthy numbers.
However, the flightpaths seem much less direct and focussed than they are during pollen gathering.
An Apiary visitor is usually able to judge where to sit to watch the comings and goings of the workers, but this flight is much more random, with bees seemingly flying with no particular destination or direction in mind.
Just being in the Apiary today more or less guarantees that you'll be crashed into, landed upon and, generally, be in the way.
Mainly it looks like one big orientation flight but LandofSpike has seen a few workers returning with pollen.

A BeesofSpike worker takes a winter rest on a nearby beekeeper

All this excellent winter activity would seem to imply that, so far, the colony seems to be surviving the winter.
LandofSpike hasn't supplemented their winter stores with any fondant yet. As a first year beekeeper this is a source of worry. Opening up the hive at this time of year is not the best of ideas but the fondant will have to be introduced at some stage.

There's also the burr comb to get rid of. Oh yes.
It's a beautiful bit of construction, and fully loaded with winter stores, but unfortunately it doesn't comply with Apiary building regulations.
LandofSpike left it in place for them to use over winter but excising it and restoring order in the spring should be interesting.
The bees won't like it.

A Thermometer for the Apiary

The BeesofSpike Apiary has a sparkly new min/max thermometer. 

It was installed in a sheltered spot on the western perimeter wall on the 19th of November and has now been in place for a month.

LandofSpike had previously been relying on the BBC's online, London-wide weather forecast for all his bee-related activities but had reached a point when this was no longer site-specific enough. 

Also, at times, it had proved to be a mite inaccurate. 

LandofSpike can recall for you a day in July when he was watching yet another biblically proportioned rainstorm turn the grounds of Spike Acres into a swamp. Simultaneously, on their website, the Beeb were defiantly claiming that the sun was, had been and would keep on, shining brightly.

This clearly wasn't good enough.

His legacy lives on

So after a bit of research, the most robust, accurate and bee-budget-friendly min/max thermometer was ordered and hove up at Spike Towers just in time for his birthday.

At this point thanks go out to the venerable and bee-friendly MumofSpike who funded the purchase.

It's billed as a greenhouse thermometer but does seem to function just as well in the great outdoors. 

Although just to be on the safe side LandofSpike has built it a little roof to keep the rain off.

Operation couldn't be simpler. 

The middle reading is the current temperature. 

Top and bottom are the maximum and minimum temperatures recorded since the reset button was last pressed. 

Maximum 14.1C, Current 13.9C, Minimum 13.7C... Simple. 

And it's been a great success.
The daily chart of maximum & minimum daytime and nighttime temperatures, when correlated with LandofSpike's general Apiary notes, make it easy to match bee activity with fluctuations in the weather.

As a consequence, The Apiary's autumn and winter thermometer-related highlights so far include these thrilling events:

   After a season-shifting cold snap starting on the 26th October (which arrived too early for the new device to record), the daytime temperature in The Apiary hovered, generally, between 11C and 14C. 
This still allowed plenty of foraging and a variety of different coloured pollens were seen being brought back to the hive. 
Despite the continued activity bee numbers were noticed to be steadily dwindling.

   The rain and cold of the 24th of November effectively ended any significant flights.
After that it didn't get back above 10C and was often well below that.
Around about now any interest in the top feeder seemed also to end.

By the 29th of November a nighttime dip below zero heralded two weeks of wintery weather and flying bees disappeared off the radar.

   As reported in the BeesofSpike post 'A Mild Winter's Day', a little warm spell on the 15th of December saw bees out and about for a little while but generally, the new Apiary Thermometer has so far recorded only seasonally cold temperatures.


Winter has set in at the BeesofSpike Apiary.

A Mild Winter's Day

It's been a bit quiet down at The Hive since the winter weather set in on November the 24th. 

LandofSpike has had the occasional glimpse of the odd worker peeking out of the entrance but, in general, the bees are hunkered down indoors and are not venturing out.

The BeesofSpike winter hive. A super full of stores and top feeder still
in place. Entrance professionally secured with duct tape.

But today, December the 15th, the weather's taken a turn for the better.
After a spell where the nighttime temperatures have regularly been below freezing, suddenly it's a balmy 10.9C in The Apiary and the bees have been back out flying again in decent numbers. 

Somewhere in the area there must be plants in bloom because foragers have been returning with pollen. 
The mortuary bees have been busy too, taking the opportunity to clear out some casualties. 

And some of the flyers just seem to be enjoying getting out in the fresh air after being cooped up for the last few of 

weeks.

After three weeks indoors, a rare chance to stretch their wings 

Interestingly, the sound of their buzzing seems to be at a lower, less urgent, tone. 

Somehow, it gives the impression that they're more languid.

LandofSpike isn't sure why this is happening or whether it's of any significance.

Maybe it's a winter thing.

Or maybe they're a bit jaded after their long confinement. 

However, it is genuinely lovely to see them flying and to see that, so far, they're wintering well.

What's That On My Landing Board?

The BeesofSpike Apiary has had a steady stream of visitors this summer.

There have been humans, of course.

Not many guests have escaped Spike Towers this year without undergoing a guided tour of the Apiary, whether they wanted one or not.

Freddie the cat has approached with caution and has tended to scale the perimeter fence for a look inside rather than venturing through the front door.

Generally, unless LandofSpike or BKJ1 are there to protect him he gives the Apiary a wide berth .

This is about as close as Freddie is prepared to get

And there have been wasps.

But not many of them.

LandofSpike has seen a grand total of no more than 5 individual wasps in the Apiary, perhaps only 10 of the blighters in the entire grounds of Spike Acres all summer.

If he'd had a Waspinator he'd have been hailing it as the most effective product on the planet but as he has yet to invest in one, he's going to put this waspy absence down to the miserably wet spring and summer.

However, and with due deference to that cat, those people and the wasps, some visitors are more interesting than others.

And the LandofSpike Wildlife Photography Team has managed to secure footage of two of this year's finest, so with no further ado we can present...

Specimen A:

This rather large beastie was lurking around the landing board and entrance on the morning of 9th July.

30mm long including antennae  

The Colony had only been in place for little more than a week, had already been diagnosed with a substantial varroa infestation and was in the middle of the wettest summer since records began so LandofSpike was feeling a little edgy. 
There was probably a choice of 4 reasons why it was there:

a) it was an enemy of the hive and was angling on laying its eggs inside the hive with that seriously large ovipositor.

b) it was an enemy of the hive and was angling on getting inside the hive to eat or kill the bees.

c) it liked pollen and was attracted by the pollen-y smell of whatever was inside that little doorway.

d) it was bushed out and just happened to be having a rest on the landing board.

So, just in case it was about to dart into the hive and start spreading chaos and disorder LandofSpike scooped it up with his trusty Queen Clip, incarcerated it in a handy jar and took it back to the Spike Towers Research Laboratories for analysis.

It wasn't best pleased at being inside the jar

Once the Big Boys' Book of Insects had been scoured for a match, its two pairs of wings narrowed it down to Order Hymenoptera and the absence of a 'wasp waist' pointed towards it being a Sawfly.

A bit stout around the middle

Pachyprotasis rapae was thought to be the most likely match but no-one was particularly certain.

However, it was certain that the big sticky out bit on the stern was the insect's ovipositor which meant that it was a female.

Most adult sawflies feed mainly on pollen so it's not hard to see why it might have been drawn to a big box full of the stuff.

Having ascertained it was no threat to the hive, Ms Sawfly was liberated back into the wild, but at the Eastern Borders of Spike Acres, well away from the Apiary, just in case.

Specimen B:

This behemoth of a hoverfly was hanging around the gates on the morning of 4th September.

It probably measured in at somewhere approaching 25mm in length.

Hmm, perhaps those bees won't notice me...

It was persistently curious about whatever might be inside the hive. However, the guard bees seemed to have the situation under control so LandofSpike didn't deem it necessary to intervene and implement a capture. 

He and BKJ1 contented themselves with taking a few photos and watching its attempts to appear nonchalant.

Identification was pretty easy. This mighty minibeast was Volucella pellucens, or the Pellucid hoverfly, and is one of the largest of Britain's flies. 

Hoverflies are nectar feeders so all that nectar-related bee activity was probably hypnotically fascinating for it. 

Interestingly, the larvae of this hoverfly live in wasp nests and bumblebee nests but fortunately not in honeybee hives.

So it may have been wondering whether or not these were wasps or bumblebees and if the hive would make a viable nursery.      

Or it could have just been after some nectar. 

Ultimately, it was just a bit too daft to get past the defences.

The Pellucid hoverfly does not possess Ninja-like powers of self-concealment

So, apart from the now vanquished varroa and a bit of waxmoth, both of which came bundled with my 5 frame nuc as a rather unwelcome added extra, that just about covers the visitors to the hive for the time being.

Next up, it's 'How to Light a Smoker First Time, Every Time".

A Long Overdue Update from the BeesofSpike Apiary

The BeesofSpike are back online.

LandofSpike would like to offer his sincere apologies for his absence from the blogosphere over the last few weeks and for the lack of news from the BeesofSpike. 

This isn't due to a lack of action in the Apiary nor is it due to any Bee-related disasters. In fact, the BeesofSpike are now in the best of health, the colony has expanded excellently and the bees are currently storing up plenty of provisions in readiness for the winter.

LandofSpike's work in the Apiary has continued unabated but he has unfortunately been unable to devote any time to the blog due mainly to the demands of the BeeKeeperJuniors' summer holidays and a sizeable workload in the pesky WorldofReality.

Fortunately he has taken meticulous BeeNotes and will, in time, be able to transcribe all the action to the Land of Bees blog. 

He has also, whenever possible, photographed the important elements of his inspections, his day-to-day observations and any other bee-related activity. 

It was good to see new comb appearing on the new frames

In addition, he and the ever present BKJ1, have recorded every inspection with the trusty CamcorderofSpike.

BKJ1, inspecting

So, with the excuses out of the way, LandofSpike can now reveal that, since our last post, the bees have been doing just fine.

There she is... the important looking one in the middle

Once the good weather kicked in on July 20th and once the mite situation was under control the colony started to thrive. 

The bees eventually moved into top gear for the end of the summer.

The new comb and stores of honey have been appearing at an ever increasing pace and the new Super has filled extremely quickly.

LandofSpike has decided to leave his Bees with the Super in place for the winter. The focus for this year is to get the colony through the winter and leaving them with a big box of full and heavy frames of capped honey seems to be an obvious choice.

Honey production up and running

They are currently harvesting the final pollen of the year.

Close to the Apiary, the grounds of Spike Towers are home to large swathes of ivy so the workers are stocking up while they can.

I counted them all out and I counted them all back

The BeesofSpike have developed a seasonal taste for syrup and they are consequently taking down industrial amounts of 2:1 sugar solution from the top feeder.

Their concerted effort at draining it dry started in the first week of September and they've been at it ever since.

BeesofSpike workers taking syrup from the feeder

LandofSpike has today returned from the local supermarket with his sixth 5 kilo pack of cane sugar of the Autumn. 
He has made up yet another batch of syrup and is just waiting for it to cool before refilling the feeder in the morning.
Details of their syrup consumption will be dealt with in a separate post and will also include the methodology for preparing the feed.

A familiar sight in the LandofSpike kitchens over the past month

The varroa count is down to about 1 per day, which means that the Apiguard has done its job perfectly. The All Clear has been sounded and the colony should be able to overwinter without fear of mite attack.

There is consequently now no sign of DWV (deformed wing virus) which, whilst the varroa had hold, had afflicted some BeesofSpike workers.

A week's worth of Varroa in mid September. All hail Apiguard

The Drones have all now been booted out. 
This took place around the end of August and the start of September.

Watching workers escorting drones to the edge of the landing board then encouraging them, nightclub bouncer style, to take off into the blue, was fascinating. 

You could almost see the workers dusting off their hands as they swaggered back to the hive, job done.

No way back for the Drones

LandofSpike's smoker technique has also improved.

From a shaky, hit and miss start, he has developed a sure fire, works-every-time method. There will shortly be a smoker-dedicated post revealing his methods to a waiting world.

Foolproof smoker lighting technique soon to be revealed!

Right, that's all for now.
It's been a rather sketchy, and not particularly cohesive, précis of the recent activity in the Apiary but hopefully it gets us up to speed on the current situation.

There is an awful lot more BeesofSpike info to upload in the near future so LandofSpike is going to try and sort it into bite-size chunks.

The next post will be along very shortly.