Author Archives: Ewa&Mikael

English summary: Our first results from our test with open and closed bottom. We can’t really draw any conclusion from October since the bees still fly and also have brood. But in general, one can see that both temperatures and humidity is fairly stable regardless outside environmental. Colony 2 is sitting under the top coverContinue reading “Månadsuppföljning av vårt test med öppen respektive stängd botten.”

English summary: We checked the weight of the hives today, and one hive came up a bit light (it have produced a lot of late brood with increased consumption as result) and we decided to add one comb with honey from our spring store.. Vid dagens vägning var en av kuporna för lätt då denContinue reading “Stödmatning i Oktober”

English summary: There is a lot of adultered honey in the stores but the magnitude is actually way bigger than anyone would have imagined. With the introduction of a new DNA test, it was discovered that every single imported jar of honey was adultered in a test of 40 different products. Only the 4 ofContinue reading “Honungsfusket – designad sirap”

English summary: We finished the Varroa battle yesterday with one final lactic acid treatment on one hive that persist with high mite count. This colony will probably not make it due to being quite weak. Bad news is that a few of our best colonies lost the resistance after they requeened which is very frustrating.Continue reading “22 okt-summering av kvalsterläget”

English summary: We had an “out of the box” presentation in a company, where none were beek’s. We focused on the life of a bee colony and all cool skills they have, such as the ability to detect magnetic fields, see UV light as well as polarised light. We finshed off by testing different honey’sContinue reading “Föredrag om bin”

English summary: Food consumption over the winter is an important topic since high consumption leads to huge amount of water to process which increases the risk of high humidity as well as dysentery in the hive. But total consumption is not a good measurement since strong colonies consume more food than really small ones. AContinue reading “12 okt – Hur mycket mat förbrukar bina per dag?”

English summary: It’s well known that top insulation is key for a great overwinter, but does the bees need bottom ventilation or not? This year’s wintertest will try to answer that since we will put moisture absorber in one mite board, one hive with empty board and one hive with no board and see ifContinue reading “4 oktober – dags för årets vintertest”

English summary: We have now installed the temp and humidity sensors in our hives, and the data show a very consistent internal environmental regardless of external temp and humidity. With insulated hives we expect the curves to stay very similar the whole winter. Nu har vi installerat temp- och fukt-givare i våra kupor och viContinue reading “29 september”

English summary: The last thing we do prior the winter is to add temp sensors on a few colonies, tape around the plastic lid to prevent airgap and add 100 mm of insulation. När de sista skälvande dagarna med sommartemperaturer infaller är det nu dags att sätta punkt för biåret; alla samhällen har sin matContinue reading “24 september – på med isolering”

English summary: Its quite common to experience i kind of “mitebomb” in September – I sudden huge increase of mites. This is quite normal since mites double theri number in 20 days, which means if you have 100 mites in april then that can easily increase to 3000 by end of the season. The bestContinue reading “Kvalsterbomb i september”