Sunday 18 May 2025
On the menu in the teaching apiary was session 4 of the Basic Assessment Group learning about pests and diseases, apiary hygiene and comb change, recognising healthy bees and brood and what to look for when things aren’t well. Then some varroa monitoring and swarm prevention using comb management techniques, and simple queen rearing by making another split into a nuc. The earlier splits were checked and queen cells broken down leaving one uncapped, charged one. The stroppy colony is now much calmer after the culling of the queen and separation into two smaller units, one of which has been united with a calm colony. The other one is also much calmer. It is now hopelessly queenless and waiting to receive a new queen from this year’s batch currently in Apidea mini mating nucs. At the home apiary there are more queen cells in the incubator waiting to emerge. Thank you everyone for coming and see you next time when we’ll be setting up mating nucs for queen cells and virgin queens as well as inspections and the usual swarm prevention procedures that we have to do at this time of year. Objective - no swarms from our colonies !
I give talks and offer bespoke mentoring and individual or group coaching including:
- Beekeeping skills for beginners
- Developing skills for Improvers
- Swarm prevention and swarm control
- Varroa monitoring and treatment
- Simple queen rearing techniques
- Preparing for winter
- Fit2Fight- managing apiaries for the Asian Hornet
- Honey Bee Communication
Preparation for:
- The BBKA Modules
- BBKA Basic Assessment
- BBKA Honey Bee Health Certificate
- BBKA General Husbandry Assessment
There is a very modest charge, mainly to cover costs, for paid up Registered members of Beekeeping Associations in Hampshire.
For more information call or message me on 0747 896 1517 or email alanbaxter@me.com