We have two hives remaining One colony gone. Dead. A thin drift of bees on the hive floor. Late to swarm, and light on bees. A small swarm. It was cold and wet before they swarmed. A wasps nest burrowed in to the base of a telegraph pole close by.
The hive itself had very little comb. I think the small colony, poor weather and maybe problems with the Queen meant they could neither gather what they needed nor defend what they had got and so, died out.
We did try to feed them. Set up syrup feeders by the hive. They barely bothered. The fields filled with flowers, the hedges bursting with pollen. Food was plentiful, and the two earlier swarming colonies fared well. Hive entrances busy with bees. Heavy with comb now. This one never had thrive to it. Perhaps the freeze and cold and wet of May followed by the heatwave made the swarm a weaker thing. Or they fled a diseased colony and brought too much of that with them. What little comb there was had varroa. A combination I think.
In the rough and tumble of living life not everything can. Live that is. This colony, too small to feed itself, or defend what it had gathered, dissipated, failed and fell. The bees now in drifts at the hives bottom. But fewer, far fewer than a colony in strength would have.
I have not taken honey yet from the healthy colonies. Will not till later in autumn. Our trap hive colony contains exactly what it needs for winter. I’ll use that hive to create swarms for next year. But it will keep its honey. When my arm heals, I will wrap it in insulation, our sheeps’ wool, with a plywood skin. The large box I will open, assess, and if it has enough to last the winter and a difficult spring, I will take a few bars.
It’s a wonder to me. The dilligent work of the colony to produce a honey that distills the diversity and wildness of where I live into something they, and I can eat. I see it as a collaboration. I plant trees, orchards, preserve and plant wildflower meadow, I leave the abundant flora of our verges unmown, keep back the quarry field and our native woodlands from grazing, fence off hedges, leave the bountiful nectar bearing things uncut, unshaped, untrimmed, and in the honey I taste that work. The careful terroir of tending and not tending with respect for nature and diversity.
I’ve written before how beekeeping is my creative and hopefully productive mid life crisis. An attempt to become good at something new, different, outside my expertise and comfort zone.
But it is also a part, fundamentally of how we farm. We are untidy, by nature, something I’ve written about before. The major work of beekeeping, for me, is in how we work the land. No spray, no chemical fertiliser. Trees, hedges, wildflower meadow, large ungrazed areas of the farm, native woodland, wildflower pastures and verges. A fundamental tenet of natural beekeeping is to create a habitat that supports, feeds and protects bees specifically, and diversity generally. To give colonies the best chance at being strong, healthy, hardy and productive. That’s what we are trying to do. And, when I taste our honey, the best things of how we farm here are what I see.
The images from today’s post are partially from Stock photos. Apologies. Hard to photo hives with a broken arm!
