Autumn 2008
The cool, wet Summer weather continued. The hives seem to have stopped making honey.
On 23rd July we expanded the small swarm boxed colony into a full size brood box. Hopefully they will fill it by Winter.
The swarm bosx is expanded into a brood box
We checked through our stored honey in the garage and annoyingly found some wax moth, so we must extract the last of our stored honey soon or it will be wasted.
inspecting stored frames
Waxmoth on a crown board
Wax moth trails through a frame
In late September we removed the two full honey Supers from the hives. Only two full supers! Not a lot for a year’s crop!
Our one productive hive
Supers off
We then fed the three colonies with sugar syrup and in November Dad put the mouse-guards on (the hives).
Feeding the bees
We Extracted our remaining 2007 honey on 11th December and jarred it up.
At least we now had some honey to sell.
With all our health problems, bad weather and lack of time we haven’t been able to check the hived swarms and colonies at Flaxton with mouse-guards or Winter feed - their future is a bit bleak.