A blog originally for keeping track of my hobby of being a Beekeeper which has evolved to include Home Brewing and even more recently to follow me and my families approach to "The Good Life". Eventually I hope to include baking recipes and stories of our flock of chickens also reporting on the success and failure at the allotments.

Saturday 18 June 2011

Apiary visit 18/06/2011

Today I visited the apiary to see how my Bees were settling in to their new home. Before going I made up some syrup to feed them; this is done to help the Bees get off to as best start as possible meaning they can concentrate on building wax comb rather than foraging. The syrup was a 1:1 ratio which means 1kg of sugar to 1 litre of water, but today I made 2:2 which made just over 3 litres.

The 3 litre pop bottle was full to the brim with syrup and I still had to take a small container to take the rest!
When I got to the allotment I put my suit on and headed to the apiary. My Dad called me earlier to say he had been up there today and put a door on the apiary at the back making it easier to get in and out.

The newly fitted door at the rear of the apiary and the back of the hive
Once inside the apiary I took the roof off the hive and lifted the feeder out. It was a good job I went up today as the feeder was almost empty! I poured all the syrup into the feeder and after taking a couple of pictures put it back in place. Although I didn't open the full hive up, it was good to see a small bit of the inside when I lifted the feeder. I could see the Bees have been busy and are building new comb, they had even built some on the bottom of the feeder!

The lid of the feeder with wax comb built on

Inside the roof where the feeder has been. The 2 white things are porter Bee escapes

A close up of the opening. Sorry it's slightly out of focus, it's hard to take pictures with a veil and gloves on!
I will be going back to do a full inspection some point next week and see how they are developing inside the hive!

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