Author Archives: Ewa&Mikael

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”

Binas värmeproduktion och distribution i klustret English summary: In this 2nd part we discuss the heat generation and transport within the cluster. The article is based on Randy Olivers origional article: “Understanding Colony Buildup and Decline: Part 13a – The Physics of the Winter Cluster”. I del 1 konstaterade vi att bina gör av medContinue reading “Vinterklustret del 2”

I år har vi för egen del fått uppleva ett drag på cementhonung, dvs honung som kommer från sekret av den stora granbarrslusen.Bakgrund: med hjälp av fotosyntesen bildar växter enkla sockerarter tex glukos som sen kan ombildas till en mängd olika nyttiga saker. Detta görs med hjälp av enzymer varvid olika sorters kolhydrater bildas, blaContinue reading “Cementhonung”

English summary: All hives seem to be ok, although the food consumption vary a lot from hive to hive.Än så länge verkar alla samhällena må bra, men åtgången varierar kraftigt från kupa till kupa. Från 0,4 kg/ månad upp till 1,5 kg som mest i december. Man kan också se att den varma oktober krävdeContinue reading “26 dec. Månadsvägning”