Another beautiful day at Berwick, visiting the Thermosolar hives, part of the Solar Bee Project. I didn’t check inside the hives as by this time of year, the bees are sealing any gaps with propolis and need to focus on collecting nectar and pollen to provision the hive for winter. In any case, I much prefer a more observational method and by looking at the … Continue reading Thermosolar Hives in Autumn
The bees have been rather challenged by the weather this year and my hives have seemingly plateaued after a slow start. Dealing with hot, cold, wind and wet needs resilient bees, and I was interested to see how the Thermosolar bees did this year. The site looks great. I love this sort of unmanaged management and it shows what happens when you actually just leave … Continue reading Thermosolar High Summer Update
It was a rather murky day for my visit to the Thermosolar bees, but the meadow areas were brimming with bees and butterflies. Marbled White, Meadow Brown, a couple of Small Skippers were flitting above the flowers and grasses, joined by a variety of bees and flies. There were also numerous banded snails which looked extremely pretty against the daisies. I walked through the thigh-high … Continue reading Meadow flowers and the Thermosolar hives
A glorious day, and the daisies have popped up almost overnight! Great to see such a swathe of these: they are not only good pollinator plants but also provide some nice tall cover for mammals. The blackthorn has gone over now, as has much of the hawthorn but this late spring does mean the traditional “June Gap” that beekeepers dread – when the trees finish … Continue reading Themosolar Swarm Update
I was called out to a swarm (thanks Georgia!) at Arlington Reservoir yesterday evening: handy as I needed a swarm for the vacant Thermosolar hive about 500 yards away as the bee flies – in fact I did think there was a possibility that they could be a swarm from the occupied Thermosolar. The other possibility was that they were from a colony living in … Continue reading New colony in the Thermosolar Hive
At last: some Spring-like weather! Lots of swarms around so I had planned my day to visit the Thermosolar bees remarkably well. They were looking bonny – here’s a slo-mo: I didn’t do a particularly invasive check as there were people on site and the bees aren’t the friendliest colony, so I checked the board and under the lid. They haven’t started building in the … Continue reading Spring Thermosolar Check
It’s been really cold – down to freezing overnight – but I was aware the Thermosolar hive is very well insulated and the bees might be needing more room as the cold may not have checked their progress in the way that other hives would. Bees need to expend a lot of energy keeping their nest at 38ºC and colonies in poorly insulated hives are … Continue reading Thermosolar Beehive
The Thermosolar hives at Berwick are based on a standard National hive, but with some modifications. I have a video below showing the basic organisation and construction: The Thermosolar ceiling is only used during mite treatment hence why I just have the roof at the moment. The occupied hive was flying well considering how chilly it was – we seem to have been stuck with … Continue reading Look inside the Thermosolar Hive
It was brisk and breezy despite the sunshine at the Berwick site today, so I was wondering if the bees would be flying. I’ve not been to check on them since the autumn, so I was keeping my fingers crossed for signs of life at the Thermosolar hive. I watched carefully and sure enough: foragers returning. Not many, but enough! and a few with a … Continue reading Checking on the Thermosolar Bees
Just a brief visit to the hive this time as I knew the small one was queenless, and the other hive needed its empty super taken off now they’ve cleaned it up. It was a beautiful day and the bees were very calm. They have a lot of Varroa so I need to perform a heat treatment on them now the super of honey can … Continue reading Thermosolar hive check
