2019 – what a year!
The bees are feeding on sugar fondant to help build up their food stores for the winter and maintain optimum health to fight disease that may be present.
While we’re only just into autumn here in England and there are still more than a couple of weeks left of 2019, the beekeeping year has come to an end. Suddenly activity on the farm shifts its focus from almost constant bee-related work, to broader maintenance, improvements and our other workshops (and my favourite time of the gardening calendar!).
When the temperature drops below 14 degrees and the colder, wetter weather sets in, we no longer inspect our bees so as to help them maintain the critical, consistent core brood temperature of 36 degrees celsius. Having me poking around in there doesn’t help them with that when it’s cold and wet outside!
But, my, what a year it’s been… and not by any means all positive. As the rest of the year for us is about repairing hives, cleaning equipment as part of our integrated disease management program and preparing for the Spring when it all starts again, I thought I’d do a wrap up of the year so far…
