After a year of talking about it we finally have got round to installing rainwater collection at the apiary, see the attached image.
On a practical note the field leading to the apiary is impassable so unless completely necessary please not attempt to drive across the field to the hut.
The module 6 notes have been updated following the completion of the BBKA correspondence course.
Module 7 updated following the completion of the BBKA correspondence course, there will be no more updates before the exam on 19th March.
The strong wind over the weekend resulted in a tree falling between two hives. The images show the apiary prior to the wind after the tidy up on Wednesday and the fallen tree between the hives. Bit of luck I would say.
With the warmer weather we have started work at the Apiary for the coming season. The woodpecker protection has been removed and all the colonies have been given some fondant. Sadly one colony has not made it through the winter.
This colony superseded very late in the season, the old queen was found caught in the queen excluder in September with the new queen laying in the super above the QE. We then removed the QE and swapped the brood and Super boxes around i.e. super was on the bottom. As you can see there were plenty of stores, just the colony was not big enough to see out the winter.
Mid Bucks Beekeepers Association Blog 