Laurence Edwards inspects nine winter colonies at River Apiary, checking frame occupation, clustering, and weight. All hives recently got oxalic acid treatment. He adds fondant to light colonies and notes that Himalayan balsam nearby boosts their vigor.
Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. So we're down at the River Apiary today. Very rarely come down to this apiary to shoot any videos, so I thought I'd come down here, shoot a few videos, see what's going on with the bees, and keep you guys updated. So this is the first colony, not very clustered up at all, but it is relatively warm now, 7 or 8 degrees. They've just been blasted with oxalic acid as well, so they're a little bit grumpy. But yeah, nice looking colony, very light though, so we're going to get some feed on. Really nice big colony here, completely full. There is no space for the bees in there whatsoever. That is a, that is a 10.5 frame there in a 10-frame box. Remember, these are 14 by 12. These go all the way down to the bottom. These ones aren't quite as light, but we're going to place fondant on all of them because we don't get to get to this apiary too often. So we're just going to make sure that they've got enough food. But check out those bees. That is what we want to see our clusters looking like. And again, a really nice-sized colony. They're across all the frames. They're not boiling over like the previous one, but that's just because they're busy down in the frames. You can see every single frame has got bees in it. This colony is fully jam-packed. Again, not quite as light as the other one, but we don't know how these guys are going to take on their feed over the next 4 to 6 weeks. We might not be able to get down here as often, so we're going to place the fondant on as a bit of an insurance policy. Don't be surprised at how quickly a colony this size can get through their stores. They might feel like they've got loads of weight now, Give it 4 to 6 weeks, they could be bone dry. So it's always best just to place a little bit on just to make sure they've got enough to keep them going. Now this colony here, in comparison to the last 2, okay, they're not quite as strong, but they're still occupying 9 frames, I'd say. There they do go down a little bit on the right-hand side, as you can look at it, but again, really nice colony. These ones again aren't too light, but they're borderline. So I'm going to give them the fondant just to make sure they've got enough to keep them going. But that's a nice strong colony. The bees in this apiary, they do really well. Lots of Himalayan balsam gets them nice and strong going into winter. Another really, really nice big strong colony here. There's definitely a correlation I find between the strength of the colonies going into winter, coming out of winter, and the location in proximity to the balsam. So we don't take a huge crop off the Himalayan balsam. I'm going to take a piece of fondant. Just want to jump in there. You can see a drone. But yeah, look at that colony there, jam-packed, over 9 frames. They probably go down into the 10th as well. This one is light though, so these are, these are in need of a good amount of feed. We'll get some fondant on them and close these up. Now opening up this colony, this is something we never like to see. All of the rest of the feeders in this apiary have taken down every last drop of that syrup, We didn't put hay in these because we didn't have time before it was too cold. I find you tend to not like what you see when you open up a colony that hasn't finished off its feed. There might not be space in there and it might be jam-packed, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna hazard a guess this one's gonna be a bit smaller than the rest. Maybe you've got an issue here. And as you can see, I promise I hadn't looked in that colony before. Nowhere near as strong. It's not as bad as I've seen though. Sometimes you open up colonies like that and there's nothing there. There's a good colony here, there's a reasonable-sized cluster, maybe it's nothing to worry about. They are quite heavy, so they've probably just not taken that syrup down because there's not enough room for them to take it down. These ones I'm not going to feed, they're really heavy, they've got syrup up in the feeder. On those warmer days in spring, they're going to go back and take that down. No need to change anything with this colony, they've got plenty of stores. Another very active colony, It's a little bit sparser, this one, in comparison to the rest of them, but there's plenty of bees here. Not the friendliest of colonies, these ones, I'm afraid, but they seem to be fine. They seem to be surviving. Reasonable amount of stores, not the best. They'll get some fondant. You can see them clustering up there now. They're probably over 7 or 8 frames in total once they settle down, but again, no dead bees. We're happy with that. So this colony here, nice and chilled out, 8 or 9 frames. Don't be deceived by the difference in this colony here. This is a really nice big strong colony. So another really nice big strong colony here, not bubbling over like the rest of them, but don't read too much into that. It's just the temperament of the bees. These guys are happy. There's a lot of bees here. They go all the way down in this 14 by 12. Nice gentle colony. Definitely like this one, so we're going to stick a nice slab of fondant on for them. Not going to be back here for a few weeks. I need to make sure they've got enough food. But really like this colony. This colony did really well last year. Really nice temperament. One of my favorite colonies to deal with. So 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.
