Category Archives: Okategoriserade

English summary: Time for the first honey badge of the season, perhaps Maple but there are many flowers at the moment so probably a mix. Efter en eländig senvinter/tidig vår med massor av fula ramar och lådor att sanera är det härligt att konstatera att bina nu åter är i gång. Två samhällen är extraContinue reading “25 april: Första skattningen”

English summary: This year’s project was to build a “show hive” for two combs that we can bring on lectures, markets and other exhibitions. Årets projekt blev att bygga en visningskupa – den kommer vi ha med oss på marknader, föreläsningar och liknande. Byggbeskrivning:1. Skruva fast alla distanser på sidorna. Tänk på att förborra demContinue reading “20 april: Visningskupa”

English summary: We have successfully carried out the first test with Melicitos. We placed it in the middle of the brood chamber and after one week the comb was clean and prepared for new brood.Nu har vi gjort vårt första test med att låta bina processa cementhonungen då vi helt enkelt satte in en ramContinue reading “17 april: Ta hand om cementhonung”

English summary: Its somewhat logical to believe that its harder for the bees to survive a winter in the North of Sweden. However, pure cold wheather is no issue for the bees as long as the hives are kept dry whereas moisture in the hive creates an environmental where the bees cant keep the clusterContinue reading “14 April: Större vinterförluster i norr – är det sant?”

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”