White honey and blond drones

I have an apiary where i keep all my best colonies, where Queens are raised and mated.  All of the Queens in this apiary are related in some way, sister, mother, aunt, cousin.  And yet just one of these colonies produces the lightest coloured drones, I have not found them in any of the other colonies in the apiary, they seem to stay where they were born.

They really are the nicest drones I have seen.  For non-beekeepers, a drone is the male honeybee and is larger than his sisters, the workers.










Another colour oddity has occurred this week, the first honey we extracted crystalised within 48 hours.  Almost certainly contains a large proportion of oil seed rape,  since setting it has been gently warmed and stirred with a stainless steel paddle to prevent it from re-setting.  It came from several hives in different apiaries about 10 miles apart, and yet this honey has all turned out white.  I can only assume the farmers in this area are using a new variety, because this is the first time we have had white honey.

On the plus side it tastes lovely, a very light flavour.  Goodness knows what our customers are going to think.

Its all about the honey

The very cold Spring has held crops back this year, especially the oil seed rape, which plays a huge part of South Lincolnshire agriculture.  Because large patches of the fields were waterlogged over the Winter the crops have grown and matured at an uneven rate, we are in July now and some fields are still in flower and have been for weeks  This has given our bees a much longer season on the osr than any normal year, whatever constitutes a normal year these days.

With the crops maturing late, our hives were just about moving towards full strength at just about the right time.  This has all resulted in producing the best early honey crop we have had for years.
Considering the very cold extended Winter and cold Spring its a very surprising result.
On the left are a few of the fully capped supers we have been taking off over the last week.  Almost certainly all with a high percentage of osr.  But it is all in 10 litre honey buckets now, waiting for it to set.

The first honey

What a strange year its been already, and it is still only June.  A really long dragged out Winter, coldest Spring on record and yet here we are mid June taking honey, five supers to be exact.  All capped, and almost certainly oil seed rape.  In fact in this part of the country, South Lincolnshire, I don't think I have ever had more than a few kilos of clear honey.  The oil seed rape has been in flower now since mid/late May and there are still fields in full flower that look as if they have a couple of weeks left in them.  The wild oil seed rape is in flower in the hedgerows and along the dyke banks and roadside verges, and will continue to flower throughout the summer, right up until the ivy flowers.  So if our honey is not pure oil seed rape, there is nearly always enough of it in the supers to set any other nectar the bees might be collecting.

Fathers day

It was a really nice morning, I was thinking about the relaxing day laid before me, perhaps a couple of hours fishing on the river bank, a full on Sunday lunch.  And then late morning a phone call, that might be someone wishing me happy fathers day, I thought.  But no, it was just what I had always wanted..... bees.  Obviously no respect for a fellas day off, as usual the girls throw a spanner in the works.

However it was a nice swarm.

Colony 'A'

The reason this colony is known as 'A', is not because it is my best colony.  It is my best colony, but that is not the reason, it is because it has been around for so long.  The Queen is very old, a 'blue', and yet the colony came through the winter on eight frames of brood and quickly rose to eleven, the same as last year.  It also collects more honey than any other colony, it currently has four supers on, three of which are full and partly capped, and this despite providing frames of brood to make up nucs and help other colonies grow.  It is also the colony that I have taken the larvae from to start breeding from, the first Queens hatched on June 8th.  I'll know in a couple of weeks if they successfully mated.

As you can see from the photo above, it is heaving with bees and there are four supers full of bees as well.  They also happen to be the mildest of bees, a lovely temperament.  If only all colonies were like this one, sadly not.  Some of the swarms I have collected over the last week or so are the nastiest things imaginable, the sooner my new Queens are able to take over a colony the better.