Author Archives: Ewa&Mikael

English summary: Some claim that it is impossible to have queens mated in the autumn partly due to no drones and partly due to low temperatures. Research have shown that a queen can fly down to 12-14 degree C if needed and if there is a flow drones will be kept quite late in theContinue reading “27 sept. Sent parade drottningar- en omöjlighet?”

Short english summary: Honey below 20% water can still start to ferment if the honey have chrystallized. The water will then end up in the fructose portion and then the honey starts to ferment. It will not make the honey go bad and if the honey is stirred and slightly warmed the chrystals are brokenContinue reading “Jäst honung får man kasta?”

Short English summary: Due to the great Heather flow we gave been forced to wait with the winter-in and even this week we were unable to push them down to two boxes and will probably have to let the ones in our forest apiary stay on three boxes.The honey season have been great and weContinue reading “22 sept. Falsk matematik och “misslyckad”invintring”

English summary: The bee year have no start nor end since what we do today will impact the result 6 month later. Since we have noticed the the farmers have planted rapeseed we will bring several hives from our forest apiary to ensure we get a good rape seed flow. Since we have plenty ofContinue reading “15 sept – planering för nästa säsong”

English summary: The winter in is delayed due to the unusual warm wheather and the late Heather flow so we still have to wait 1-2 weeks to bring the tvo brood chambers into one. But since we use 100% honey we are not in any hurry so we can wait a bit longer. We haveContinue reading “12 sept: Säsongsavslutning”

English summary: In two colonies we have seen increasing mite drop and after disecting 100 worker brood we realized that we have a huge infestation and need to perform formic acid treatment. Studies indicate that formic acid is associated with increased Queen mortality and our own experience point towards 30% queen losses connected with formicContinue reading “8 sept: Misslyckat test och cementhonung”

English summary: Counting daily mitefall is a reliable method during the season but in late August it is not enough since the increase may go very quick. A sampling of worker cells will then tell how many mites can be expected in two weeks once they hatch. This year we saw a huge increase inContinue reading “3 sept. Varroabehandling 2.0”

Short english summary: Most beekeepers know that drones are haploid copies of the queen but fewer knows that there is a thing called diploid drones. Bees does not have X and Y chromosomes to determine the sex but instead one gene on the chrmosomes, Loci, that determines the sex. Honey bees have about 20 differentContinue reading “2 sept. Diploida drönare – könsbestäming av bin”

English summary: In our home apiary flow is slow and the bees start to reduce their numbers. Unfortunately we have a bit of mite issue in two of the hives and we are on the border to be forced to use Formic acid (FA). In order to understand how the situation will be in twoContinue reading “1:a sept. Finns det ljung finns det hopp”

English summary: We prepare for the winter in our home apiary while we still have a super flow in the forest apiary where the bees still populate 4 boxes and even produce drones. We have a record result for the forest apiary and in fact the best producing hive this year will most likely beContinue reading “25 augusti- invintring och fullt tokdrag”