In this episode of the Zane's First Nuc series, the presenter inspects a north‑Wales nuc colony in late July. He notes minimal activity in the upper supers, an empty honey flow, and under‑filled frames, concluding that the nectar season is effectively over for this apiary. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing when to stop chasing honey to avoid exacerbating varroa pressure, wasp intrusion, and robbing. The brood box, however, shows a healthy, queen‑right brood nest with capped brood at all stages, indicating strong colony vitality. The presenter recommends selective harvesting of a few honey‑laden frames (estimated £10‑£15 worth, ~30 jars) while leaving the majority for winter stores. He outlines steps for winter preparation, including careful queen handling and ensuring sufficient stores. A future decision point is set for episode 16, with an absolute cut‑off date of 15 August to decide whether to attempt further honey collection. The overall message balances realistic assessment of a failed honey season with optimism for the colony’s winter survival and next‑year potential.
Chapters
Zane's First Nuc, episode 15. Let's get inside. So still not much action up in the top box, but I would say it's the next week once all the brood emerges downstairs, assuming the queen is still there. But once that brood emerges downstairs, we should be good to start seeing some bees upstairs in the supers. So still very much empty in this one. A few bees knocking around in it, but not doing anything. But it's doing no harm up there. That's why I always tell myself it's better to have a bit of empty dead space upstairs. And then I'm looking downstairs here in the super, and I have to say I'm underwhelmed. I am underwhelmed because there's not much going on. We said last week about like the frames, these centre frames being filled up, and the flow's dead. The flow has stopped, the flow has gone. So even getting one super full I think is going to be a challenge this year. But this is a really, really good lesson to all of the beekeepers here. If anyone thought that this was going to end with 6 supers on and everything was going to be fine, they Then that would have been nice. That would have been a good lesson, wouldn't it? But I think the bigger lesson is realizing when to cut your losses. We've reached that stage on this colony here now. This frame here was like that last week, and then this frame here was like that last week as well. They've done nothing, like zero in a week. And I know as an experienced beekeeper looking around, looking at what's going on with the weather, looking at what's going on with the rain, with the flowers. The season is over. It is completely over. So don't chase the honey crop. Really easy to fall into that trap because you bought the bees, you bought the nuc, you bought the beehive, you told your mates you're going to get some honey. So you'll let it go, you'll keep on going saying, come on, it's only the middle of July or the back end of July, we've got weeks left of the season, maybe months left of the season depending on what books you read. But it's done. And it's bad news for Zane. Zane doesn't know this, he's obviously not here, but I reckon even one super is going to be a push for this colony here. So I'm not going to recommend extracting it now, but I think episode 16, I think we're going to be taking the honey off. We're going to be taking out any honey that we've got on those frames, and we're going to be getting the colony ready for winter. Now that might seem like a failure, and as I said, you got all the way through thinking that it was going to be a massive success. Let's judge the success by how this colony comes through the winter. And we will keep going with it. Fingers crossed we'll keep going with it next year. If you're seeing this in your first season, you get to the back end of July and the flow's dead and the colony's not filling up the boxes, don't make the mistake of thinking, I'm going to push the bees even further, because all you're doing is you're doubling down on the impact that varroa can have, and you're just giving an open invitation to wasps and robbing bees to come and take any little honey that you've got here. So my advice is going to be the same. It's going to be any frames like this, Like beautiful frames of honey. We'll shake the bees off those and we'll harvest these ones. Got a good 6 or 7 frames like this, not capped on that side, but I'd definitely be extracting that frame there though. And as you go to the middle, some really nice heavy frames, but this colony just left it a little bit too late to catch that flow. Right, so that's the honey out of the way. Probably estimate about £10 to £15, maybe 30 jars of honey, which is not the end of the world. I know We expect a little bit more than that nowadays, don't we? But the more important thing for me is what is going on downstairs, down here. Please don't tell me they've swarmed again. Always check the bottom of the excluder to see if the queen is there. But the brood box is looking pretty good. It's still full of bees. You can see where the colony is. It's over this side here, and then there's frames of stores over that side. So for me, it's quite easy. I'm going to go and take these frames out first so I don't risk rolling the queen. Wow, and even downstairs there in the brood box, you can see they're struggling a little bit. They've got empty space down there still. I say the season's finished, it might not be finished for you, but for us in North Wales, I'm calling it as finished because there's bits of nectar knocking around. This colony's got too much space, if anything. I remember that frame last week, that frame was a lot heavier last week. The bees are going backwards. I'm not worried about space for swarming. I'm not worried about space for swarming. Definitely not. I'm not worried about stores because there's lots of nice heavy frames even downstairs in the brood box. This is really good to see though, the brood nest is back on track. We left it a little bit too late. If we'd have got it back on track first time round, we'd have probably had 2 or 3 supers, I would say. But I've got capped brood here, I've got brood in all stages, I've got eggs, I've got my queen, everything I need to make that brood nest expand. The only thing that's missing now is the time of the year. It is just too late to do anything with this colony. I say that apart from getting them ready for next year, and that's the bit that a lot of people really neglect. They don't focus in on what you need to do to get this colony through the winter. So the first thing you need to do is not squish your queen when you put her back in. So I'm going to put her back in down here, super careful. But this is nice to see. We've not seen this for a long, long time. That's just a completely laid up frame. You'll notice there's not many stores on this frame, but there's plenty of stores Throughout the rest of the colony, so I've not got an issue. Lovely drawn-out frame, broodnal stages there pretty much from wall to wall. Lovely frame of brood there. So this is what we want to see here, Xane. I know it's not great news upstairs in the super, but it is brilliant news downstairs in the brood nest. It really is. Not only are the bees a lot more chilled out now— normally the time they come and sting me— but they're happy with that queen. She's produced Exceptional amounts of brood. Like, we've not had this in the colony all the way through. And then it's only when you get to the end frame there that we are back to stores once again. That brood downstairs in the brood nest is something that we've been missing for so long. You imagine each one of those frames is going to convert to roughly 2.5 to 3 frames of bees. There were 6 of them down there. So once all of that brood has emerged, I'd be expecting this colony here not only to completely fill the brood nest, which it's not doing at the moment, but it should be filling that first super there as well. And I'd almost expect to see the bees coming up into that top Super as well. It's borderline though. We're gonna have to keep an eye on this one, see what's going on, see if we get some rain, see if the flow comes back in. Like, in a normal year, we'd still have about 3 or 4 weeks in this apiary before I'd say enough's enough, let's get the treatments on, let's get the honey off. Not straightforward, and it does change. It has to be a little bit dynamic, but we will keep this one going. Episode 16, we'll make a decision whether we go for another couple of weeks to see if we can get those supers filled. My absolute cutoff though It's 15th of August, so we've got a maximum of 3 more episodes before we take the honey off. I would love it if we could get those supers filled for Zayn. I'm not sure the weather's going to play ball. Fingers crossed we get some rain over the next few days, and then if we do, all is left to play for.
