There should be nothing much to report on the bee front in November – by now the colony should have settled down to winter with the queen no longer laying and the workers clustering into a ball for the coming cold weather.
I say ‘should’ – they are still pretty active which isn’t a good thing as there’s no longer any real forage about. Still some ivy and I’ve seen them taking ivy pollen which means the queens are still laying. With the queens laying that means much more activity and it means they will be burning through their stores that much quicker. I can’t see this going on much longer but an early frost would be nice to slow things down.
Several people have mentioned last month’s notes about feeding and the insight that adult bees are fed sugar because, well, that’s all they eat – all they are physically capable of eating. With warming winters and un-reliable Springs I don’t think that any colony can survive without some feeding.
I know though that some of you are not wholly comfortable with the beekeeping practices that I use at the garden – I do feed, I do extract honey, I do control swarming and I do control pests (with formic and oxalic acid, not with pesticides) – and it’s for this reason that Sarah has arranged the talk at Zero at the end of the month, Thursday 28th September 7:3PM to 9:00PM >>
I’ll be talking about different types of beekeeping practice and welcome any and all questions. If at the end the feeling is that these beekeeping practices don’t really fit with the ethos of the garden then I’ll move them out during the winter - any likely homes please let me know!
But if you have a view or would just like to know more then do please come along.
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