Category Archives: Okategoriserade

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”

Short English summary:We extracted heather honey from 32 combs which gave 21 l honey but a considerable amount is found on the floor, walls and myself.It is well known that any honey can have a maximum of 20% water witht he exception of Heather that can carry 23%. The reason for this remarkable difference isContinue reading “18 aug: totalt kaos i slungrummet samt en gammal myt”

Short English summary:At the end of August it is time to prepare winter in and by using honey it is very easy and quickly done. But before we start we need to ensure that we have control af the mite situation and if we have to high infestation level appropriate treatments must be applied. OnceContinue reading “Bigården augusti, del 2”

English summary: In our forest apiary there is a huge Heather flow and the supers are bursting with honey in contrast to our home apiary where we have no Heather and hence no flow. Therefore we ahve stsrted to prepare for the winterin by placing all full frames in one box that later will beContinue reading “11 aug. slut på drag och tokdrag samtidigt”

Short English summary: We have had a surprise flow which is unusual for the time of year. The extracted honey was very dark and indicates that it is in fact honey dew, but unfortunately the heavy rain we had last days probably washed all the dew away. So, it is time to consider the winter-inContinue reading “Slut på draget och svarta drottningar”