Author Archives: Ewa&Mikael

English summary: We have plotted the daily temperatures of Okt-Nov 2022-2024 and in 2023 there were fewer days with temperatures above the 10 degree C, which stopped the bees from late foraging of IVY and other autumn flowers. In 2023 we had no issues with dysentery but in both 2022 and 2024 we had highContinue reading “13 april: Orsaker till vinterförluster”

English summary: We replaced our lost hives with new ones but since they lived in 3/4 Langstroth we had to convert them into our combs which turned out to be a challenge. But end of the day we have 5 new hives in our apiary.Moa, en biodlar kollega utanför Arvika, ville sälja några samhällen menContinue reading “7 april: Äventyr i Arvika”

English summary: We have cleaned all hives and shook out the wet nectar from combs out of three hives which gave about 6 litres of unprocessed nectar. One can only guess how much they ate prior the colonies collapsed but for certain it was quite some considearble amounts. No surprise that it drove them toContinue reading “5 April”

English summary: Bees can die during the winter due to many reasons but there are three main problems; Varroasis, starvation, and dysentery which gives different clues in the hives. Varroasis will kill the bees early, quite often during the first real cold period. The mites will weaken the winter bees which thus are to weakContinue reading “Varför dör bina över vintern?”

English summary: We got plenty of concrete honey last season and to overcome that we checked all hives fairly late and removed all suspicious combs and shook them to ensure we only had mature honey. Despite that effort, during our spring check we noticed plenty of “wet” honey combs as well as frames with dysentery.Continue reading “Murgröna-en dyrköpt läxa”

English summary: Quite often we see claims that sugar is better than honey as winterfood but rarely we see any reliable proof for the claim. One of the few real field tests were carried out by Randy Oliver (who was actually looking for the optimal substitute and used sugar as negative control and honey asContinue reading “Vinterförluster”

English summary: Monthly weighing and we can see big differencies depending on the size of the cluster. We have two huge colonies which we hope will generate a honey supply already in april. Man kan se att bina nu lägger massor av yngel då förbrukningen har stigit rejält, speciellt för de stora samhällena som gjortContinue reading “3 mars – månadsvägning”

English summary: We have checked our hives and concluded that we have two hives that died of Varroasis which was expected due to the infestation level noticed in late August. Also two weak hives died – those hives were on the border to be able to create an effective cluster and sure enough they gotContinue reading “Ny säsong och vinterförluster”

Våren är på gång och hassel blommar redan. För kallt för bina men man känner att det är på gång.

English summary: January weighing and there is a big span in consumption where the biggest colony have used up a whopping 8,5 kg so far. We hope this means they will be mega strong in april but time will tell. Dags för månadsvägning. Snitt per månad är 1,2 kg men med stor varians där någraContinue reading “Månadsvägning januari”