SEPTEMBER 2003
September - the month for harvesting the honey.
During the first first week of September Paul and John removed the queen
excluders and put Bavarol strips in all the hives. A crown board with
one way bee escapes were put between the brood boxes and the supers.
Dad removes a queen excluder
and replaces it with a clearer board. (Note the white
bee escapes)
Apistan anti mite strips are added to another hive
Five days later after all the bees had left the honey supers, Paul took the full supers off the hives.
Paul removing supers from hive 3
A garage full of honey supers
Now that we have taken the honey away from them we had to give the bees some food stores to replace it. Over the next fortnight Dad, Paul and John were kept busy filling each of the feeders on the five hives at Monk Avenue with 9 pints of sugar syrup (2 lbs. sugar to 1pint of water) each.
John mixing up some sugar syrup
A hive and feeder (Note the narrowed entrance to discourage
wasps and robbing bees).
For the last two weeks of September Paul took the feeders to the bees
at Flaxton and fed them while John, Paul and Dad were kept busy mixing
enough sugar syrup solution to give the bees a good feed for the Winter.
It was a good job September was a good warm, quiet month as it took us
alot longer than expected to feed all the hives this year.
Good night to all the bees. I hope it is a good Winter.