Sorry folks, I should have posted here in the first place, but can anyone please help me find some new Bees? if possible in the Gironde or adjoining departments.
Sure, shoot any questions you may have, and I'll be happy to help out where I can. I'm not always online, but I will respond.
Zoe,
Can I please PM you for some advice about this colony I am going to collect in just over a week?
Many thanks Zoe.
Only wild flowers, hedgerow plants and some gorse around here. Lots of open fields with grass. I have sown some wild flower seed in a patch of our ground in an attempt to imprve the flora.
Great news, Alan.
I would not feed, but "stimulate" them, with a little syrup around now. They SHOULD do just fine without, but it would get the queen boosted, and give them a better chance of building up strong for the rest of the season.
We have our hives exploding, splitting about three every visit to the apiary now. They are on accacia, but it's almost finished, I'd say.
Haven't got a hive, spare, sorry to say, but it's great news you have swarms coming in. A local friend here has also had his empties fill up in the last two weeks.
Things are never what they seem. This afternoon I went out to strim round my empty hives. Guess what? at the bottom of two of them were lots of Bees making new comb.
As I do not have any drawn comb, I have put four frames of Foundation in each of the two hives, and this leads to a question. Do I feed, and if so syrup or candy? Advice very welcome.
Secondly, as I have a swarm to collect in a couple of weeks, and I am awaiting a nuc of Buckfast Bees, does anyone within easy reach of dept 33 have a second hand hive to sell?
Hi Alan,
i am sorry to hear about your father.
you have a lot on your plate at the moment, the beekeepsing has to wait a little, but perhaps it's just as well, with the summer we are about to have, we will probably loose a lot of colonies.
That's one stong looking colony you have in the pic, you might get a couple of boxes filled, if you trusted them to make their own queens, or were willing to buy queens.
Hi Zoe,
Thanks for asking, but I had to postpone and go to the UK at the end of last week as my father had a stroke.
Came back on Sunday, and now have three weeks of GCSE marking, so it won't be till mid June now till I can get them. I have found a supplier of Buckfast Bees, and hope to pick some up from Toulouse in July.
I am not going to rely on having just a couple of hives, but I am aiming for three or four by the end of the summer, and doubling it next year. I have attached a picture of the colony.
So, Alan, how did it go?