Ling Heather 3 Weeks Later

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Today I'm going to give you an update on my hives that are on the heather moorlands. So have a look at that, like, that is Welsh ling heather. We have mixed moorlands here, so you have trees, you have bilberry bushes, So you basically get like very small blueberries, but like a wild blueberry. They're really nice. There's bramble here, there's kind of a bit of a mix, but as you can see, like, it is full to the brim of really, really healthy looking ling heather. So the ling heather is this purple stuff here. We'll do a couple of close-ups just so you can kind of see it. It doesn't flower for very long, only flowers for kind of like 3 or 4 weeks, but probably only yields really well for like 2 of them if you're lucky. It's notoriously difficult to get a crop off the ling heather. It just doesn't always work. The temperature doesn't always work, it doesn't flower at the correct time. It's a difficult one to get a good crop from, and then also it's a really, really difficult crop to deal with once you do get a crop. So the honey is thickstropic, which means that you can't spin it out like normal honey. It's effectively like a jelly and it won't come out of the combs just from spinning it, so you either need to loosen it with a loosener and then you can spin it out tangentially, or you need to just kind of press it out some way. So it's a difficult honey to get a good crop of and a difficult honey to get a yield of. So in this video I'm going to give you an update on my hives. So my hives have been up here about 3 weeks now, 2 and a half, 3 weeks, and they're doing really, really well. You can just see like It's it's magnificent. It's a really really good bloom. We don't have any issues with heather beetle, which is affecting moorland across the UK. So in this particular spot in North Wales, I'm not going to tell you where it is. Do you mean we have no issues and it's doing really really well and giving us a good yield? So in this video, I'll show you some of my colonies. I'll show you how well they're doing. I'll give you a little bit of an idea about the timings of when to bring your colonies up. And talk a little bit about the Glorious 12th, which is the traditional date of bringing the colonies to the heather. So yeah, to touch on the Glorious 12th, I mean, the traditional time to bring the colonies up here is the 12th of August. That's when the grouse shooting season starts, and that was traditionally when you bring your hives up to the heather to feast on the ling heather. It's wrong, it doesn't work anymore, and the 12th of August is not a good date to go by. So if you see that in any old literature, you can disregard it. I like to get my colonies up there last week of July, and around here I'd say the average is kind of first week of August to get the yield going. So it could be kind of last week of July, could be first week of August, definitely isn't 2 weeks into August. It's earlier than that now, and whether that's to do with climate change, I'm not sure, but in this part of North Wales, the 12th of August does not work. So there's a good tip there. Get your colonies up there nice and early if you want to get a good yield of ling heather. So cut to a couple of close-ups of some ling heather. It's a really, really interesting plant and the bees absolutely love it. This spot here, like, there's tons of bees. Loads of people bring their beehives here. I've got a nice spot completely out of the way. Try not to mix with too many of the other beekeepers just to keep the disease levels down. But yeah, my bees are feasting really, really well on it. So I'll do a couple of close-ups and just show you how Cool, the ling heather plant is. So this is what the ling heather looks like, lots of little flowers, purpley-white. You can see it, I mean, you can see big blooms of purple when you kind of get a nice spread of it. This one here is a bit dead, so you get dead heather, which no one likes, and then you get kind of new springy shoots of new heather, which everyone does like. And then next to it you've just got some bilberry. But yeah, that's what it looks like. Cool plant, hey? Right, so I'll show you a couple of my hives now and show you how well they're collecting the ling heather. So the bees have well and truly found the heather. It's Saturday the 15th of August and the bees are very happy indeed. These guys here, they're not on 7 or 8 supers as it looks there, they're actually only on 1. One of them's on 2, just storing excess boxes. There. But you can really see, you know what I mean, the bees are— they're really— they're piling this honey in. Um, I'm really happy with it. I've got the timing right this year, but more important than that, I got the weather right. That was the really important part. Um, obviously I had a huge amount of play in that, but when the conditions are right and you get the bees up to strength at the right time, and the flowers, I mean, they play ball as well. So really, really happy with how we've got on this year with the heather, and I'm sure we're going to get a really, really nice harvest. So as I've said previously, Jordan, with the heather, you need to make sure you don't come up and just stick 3 or 4 supers on. The bees really don't work the heather very well like that for some reason. If you do that, you'll get kind of bits and bobs all the way throughout those 3 or 4 supers. So you really do need to start with just one super And then come back, check. Once that super's full, you can put another one on. The bees really caught me off guard this year. They filled these up so quickly. Like, the weather, you can feel it here today. It's like 24, 25 degrees. That's a lot cooler than it's been recently. I'm looking at the camera there and I'm just seeing literally swarms of bees flying in, flying out. They're loving this weather. They're loving the higher temperatures. They're loving the kind of misty cloud cover. They're really, really loving the high humidity, so I'm quite astounded as to how much honey they've put on. Like I said before, I've got the timing just right. So let's have a look inside this colony and I'll show you some Ling Heller honey. So this colony here, I've got a 14 by 12 brood box, and then I've got a super, and then I've got a normal kind of brood box, but it is a super on top. Um, so they're basically on about 2 and a half supers, and as you can see, absolutely jam-packed full of bees. So we'll pull a couple of frames. So obviously this box here went on second, so I'll show you the super underneath it. But already there's loads of weight in that box, really nice. So this was an unwired drone foundation, and as you can see, they pretty much filled that one up. Nothing capped yet, but pretty much full, both sides with honey. Really, really nice weight to it. Like, the smell is unmistakable ling heather. It's, it's perfect. It really is perfect Welsh ling heather honey. Um, the colour is a giveaway. It's always that kind of dark amber, but the The smell is completely unmistakable. You really, really do have to try Welsh heather honey. As you know what I mean, we've got a super there. It's not full yet, but it's, it's pretty— it's completely drawn out. Um, that went in as just foundation, so they've drawn out all 10 frames in there. They filled all 10 frames pretty much. They'll cram a little bit more in there and then they'll start capping that off. So we've got one nice full super there. But then also on top of that, I've got— I mean, there's probably more in this, uh, in this top box now than the bottom box. Um, this only went on 4 days ago and they're just piling it in. Like, the bees in the air is— it's just quite amazing how many bees there are at the moment and how well they're doing. So if I had to estimate, I'd probably say there's 20-25 pounds in there already. Obviously once that's full, you'll get that up to about 40 pounds. So if I had to estimate this colony, how much we've got in there so far, I'd say probably £15 in the super and probably £20-£25 in this top box here. It's going to give me about £35-£40 just at the moment, and obviously they might fan that kind of nectar down a little bit. The majority of that looked like kind of real already fanned down honey, so I don't think I'm going to lose The forecast isn't that great going forward though, so I'm not expecting too much more. Um, if I get 35 pounds from each colony, I'll be over the moon. I'll be really, really happy. But the big reason I wanted to do this video, and the reason I wanted to do it now, is to talk to you a little bit about timings. Um, the 12th of August, that is supposedly when you're supposed to bring your bees up to the heather. Um, the Glorious 12th. That's what it's always been, and that's what everyone always says, that you make sure your bees are up by the Glorious 12th. And that's kind of the day that most people used to take them up there. And from my— from my own experience in the last 5 years, that is at least 2 weeks late. Um, it just doesn't work bringing them up on the 12th. I mean, if I brought them up on the 12th, that was 3 days ago, I'd have been lucky to have 2 or 3 super frames drawn out, let alone any honey in them. I brought these up on the 26th of July and I've got 35 pounds of honey in this hive, and I've got a lot of other hives that have got honey in it as well. This one's probably, probably the best performer here, but I'd say kind of averaging like 15 to 20 pounds on the other hives just from kind of giving them a heft. So if I'd have left it until 3 days ago, I wouldn't have any of that. My honey crop would be pretty much nil. So it's just that reminder, the timings, the traditional timings of coming up to the heather on the 12th of August— don't believe them. I just, uh, it's, it's probably something that's happened in the past. I know it aligns with the kind of grouse, uh, beginning of the grouse shooting season, um, and that's kind of linked into the heather. So I think they just kind of aligned the dates, but I really don't think there's much logic between linking the 2 dates anymore. My rule of thumb is last week in July, um, and that seems to work for me in North Wales. Obviously each area will be completely dependent, so down in the south it's going to be different from up in Scotland, and you just need to work out what that sweet spot is for you. It is quite interesting though, because when I came up here kind of like first week in August, um, I had lots of bees in the boxes and I had a little bit of nectar, but it wasn't ling— it wasn't ling heather, because you can smell it and it's unmistakable So it's not to say that the flows of the Ling started on the 26th of July. They probably started maybe, if I was going to guess, 3rd or 4th of August. But it's getting the bees up there is sometimes a lengthy process. I like to feed them once they're up there, get that brood box absolutely jam-packed full of bees. If I need to get any supers drawn out, I like to use that time to do it. So it's that kind of prep time at the beginning is really, really important as well. But yeah, last year I brought 5 or 6 hives to the heather because I thought it was going to be rubbish, and it literally was the worst year I can remember. I didn't take a single, single jar of honey from the bees. This year I brought 24, 24 hives up here, and it's going to be a really, really good year. Again, I could— I can just feel the warmth. Like today, there's no breeze. I can't stay very cool even in my, my, um, BB I haven't got that breeze, but the humidity is quite oppressing. But wow, the bees absolutely love it. So really, really good tip to look out for those conditions. Like, we've dodged swarms left, right, and center this week, um, and we've just had real continental weather, which is high humidity, high temperature in the day when the bees are foraging, and then mega storms at night. And that's— I mean, the heather just sucks in all of that moisture in the night, and then in the day it gives it back in the form of nectar. I can really, really see the results of that in my colonies at this time of year. So I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna leave them up here for that much longer, I don't think. Like, sometimes I kind of like try and leave them up here to extend that period. Um, it's the 15th of August at the moment. First, first day of September, pretty much I'm done. Like, as soon as I see the flow stop up here, I'm taking them off. Because I don't want to risk the varroa load building too much in my bees to kind of get an extra 5 pounds of heather honey per hive. I'm going to have a really nice crop. I know I'm going to do that, so I'm going to do what's best for the bees. So as soon as I see either it starts to rain or it's forecast to really badly rain for the next 2 weeks, all I'll do then is I'll wait for all of this honey to be capped, give it a little test on the refractometer, and then I'll just take the honey I'll take the bees down to a normal altitude, I'll give them their feed, I'll give them their varroa treatments, and I'll get them ready for the winter. So let's have a look at one more colony just to give you kind of— let you know that it wasn't a fluke with that one. They all are all really quite advanced. This one here, when I came up with these boxes, I wanted to put them on. I was going to kind of put them somewhere safe and out of the way. I got caught up in a thunderstorm, and the moors is the last place you want to be in a thunderstorm. So as soon as I saw that thunder in the distance, I just whacked them onto this hive and I got in the truck and went home. Storms and heather are a perfect mix in terms of honey. Storms and heather— you don't want to be on the moors on your own in a storm, so always play it safe. Let's have a look in this hive. Like, I think you'll notice as well, like, what a difference kind of the weather and the humidity makes in terms of the bees' temperament. That first video when I showed you kind of me moving to the heather, stung in the face, which I know is a lot of people's favorite pastime, watching me get stung in the face. But they were really horrible bees, like they weren't happy. I'd taken all of their feed off them, I'd moved them to a strange place, they wanted revenge and they took revenge on me. Now they're so much happier, like they're really, really working strong ling heather flows and they're nowhere near as grouchy. So as soon as I When all this flow stops, they'll probably be back to not very nice bees again, but it's just the time of year and that's kind of, that's what happens with bees. So again, this colony here, same configuration as before. I've got a super, so I started off with a super, and then I've got another brood box sized box that I'm using as a super that's gone on the top. You could argue I should probably do it the other way around, but it was just what was available with boxes, and when I pulled some of my other boxes from other apiaries that didn't have anything in them And they were just available to go on. So again, nice super frames. This was unwired, um, thin brood foundation, get that right. So different from the drone foundation. I just use whatever I had. So this would be perfect for making cut comb. Um, really nice weight to it, filled pretty much on both sides. Um, just waiting for the bees to cap that one over. I mean, as you can see in the box there, just try and tilt it so you can see. I mean, they have drawn out every last frame there, they're filling it up. The smell is amazing. If I had to guess, maybe 10 to 15 pounds in there again. And then in the top box, not quite as much in the other one, but I'd say probably another 10 to 15 pounds in there. Like I literally just want to eat some of this honey. I love ling heather honey; it is my personal favourite. But you can see, I mean loads of loads of honey in there. Bees are doing really well. Not so much on that side. And again, if I'd have left it until the twelfth of August, the glorious twelfth, I don't think I'd have any of that. So I've got the timing right this year. I'm very happy with that. So probably can't see it through the veil, but I'm smiling. Behind here because I've got a really, really nice heather honey crop. So we'll do a final video on the heather when I come back to kind of get all of the honey off, um, and I'll show you how much I've got and I'll kind of give you a tally and tell you how much weight I've got. 24 hives up here, um, I was aiming for £20 per hive, so £480. I'm gonna go a little bit more than that. I'm gonna say I'll get about £600 for my 24 hives and I'll be really, really happy with that if I can get any Anywhere close to that figure. Right, so I think you'll agree the heather crop for this year is looking really, really nice. It's the 15th of August. I'm going to leave them up here for another 2 weeks. If we get similar weather, which I don't think we will, I'm hoping I can put on maybe another 5 or 10 lbs per colony, and I'll be really, really happy with that. My target was 20 lbs per colony, so pretty much a super, and I think I'm going to get significantly more than that. So overall, I think 2020 I know it's been a bad year, but it might be a really, really good yielding heather year, so fingers crossed. So that's it for the video. I hope you've enjoyed the update of my colonies at the ling heather. Definitely, if you're close, anywhere close to some good moorland, get a couple of colonies up there and see if you can get yourself some ling heather honey. It's by far and away the nicest honey in the world, in my opinion. It really is something very, very different I mean, you've got your kind of clover and your wildflower honey, and they're really nice and taste very good, but there's that kind of bitter undertone to heather honey with the floral notes that make it kind of really like a world-class honey. So if you've got any questions, give me a shout. As always, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.