What a year, I have never known anything like it. Bees virtually starving at the height of the season, now the ivy is coming into flower a month early and the girls are going for it, all my colonies are heaving and supers filling. No swarm calls for over a month and then two on Sunday 19th, that is just about the latest I have ever collected a swarm, surely coming to the end now, there comes a point when even the bees must realise that its getting too late for a swarm to survive and the princess to mate.
Its too late for the swarms I collected to follow my normal procedure, by the time they go through a brood cycle it will be late September, way past the time of year I would consider uniting. So they will have to manage the winter as they are and be requeened in the Spring, one of them has eggs already, I will check the other tomorrow.
And I have just had the first orders for colonies for early May 2013, I don't even start to advertise until November. Its easily the earliest I have taken orders. The advantage early orders get is that they can choose their colony, do the last few inspections of the year with me, be there when I treat with oxalic acid, decide if they would like to keep the overwintered Queen or have the colony requeened in April, and they have a price fixed at this years rate. It helps me loads, judging how many hives I need to construct and how many Queens to organise for next year. I will be producing Queens in numbers next year, I usually only keep enough to get me through the year, but next year I will be producing a surplus to sell.
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