Apiary Visit Andy Burne 4 July 2010 PDF Print E-mail

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With a gusty wind and heavy rain showers in the morning, I don't think anybody thought they would be looking inside bee hives, including host Andy Burne! Not to be deterred however, Andy had laid out a selection of equipment in his (extremely ordered!) garage and the 22 club members who turned out were encouraged to discuss various aspects of equipment, technique and disease control.

 


 

This was extremely interesting and I can safely say that everyone learned something, even the experienced beekeepers.

The resulting discussions covered topics including:
  • Purchase and introduction of Queens
  • Winter feeding
  • Nosema treatments
  • Varroa treatment (3 members including Andy noted excellent success with Beevital Hiveclean)
  • Queen rearing equipment (Andy has bought a Jenter queen rearing kit and is about to start experimenting with it)
  • Drone and worker foundation

 

Some of Andy's equipment open for discussion

 

Andy, who has been keeping bees for 6 years had taken all his 5 overwintered colonies to the flowering oil seed rape, resulting in excellent colony growth and 80lbs of honey, a light coloured creamy granulated honey with a light, fresh taste. He distributed a table showing how he had used the resulting 5 strong colonies to make up his stocks to 12 colonies, and also to sell 7 nucs of bees to other beekeepers.

Andy explained that his interest lies predominately in bee rearing, rather than honey production and that he uses bought-in queens to establish breeding colonies. Some of the members present had benefitted from Andy's production and noted good colony growth and temper. His move towards fully homebred queen rearing is a further step along this path in the purchase of the Jenter system, and we await his results with interest.

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Miraculously the weather had improved by the time this session was over and following a welcome brew and some very nice cake, it was time to don veils and look at his hives. Andy's apiary is quite exposed to the wind so each inspection was rather more rapid that hoped but we quickly moved through several colonies. Due to the splitting of his colonies, the remaining are small, occupying on average about 5 frames. Despite the gusting wind the bees displayed good temper.

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We were treated to an impressive display of queen marking when a new queen was spotted. Andy deftly trapped her under a queen cage and applied a yellow spot before she carried on unaware and untroubled.

 

 

 

The queen can be seen almost centre frame, pointing away from the camera

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Andy also showed us a couple of apideas that he has set up with some workers drawing out comb in preparation for queen introduction. One had laying workers with the classic multiple eggs in one cell. An experienced member pointed out that this colony would be unlikely to accept a queen in this state. He went on to suggest one solution for any worker-laying colony. The colony is taken some distance from its site and all the bees are shaken out. The hive is then taken back to it's site and the flying bees will return, but the laying worker(s), having not been out of the hive to orient themselves, will not. Andy_Burne_Visit_6

All-in-all an excellent afternoon, and a great opportunity to share experience and ideas - perhaps a new template for future meetings where we can do something regardless of the weather?

 

 

 

Andy's apiary is neat and luxuriantly spacious!

 

 

 

 

 

Many thanks to Andy and his family for making us welcome.

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Last Updated on Tuesday, 06 July 2010 22:06