So much for being prepared

I was all set last week... Then reality hit!

We extracted about 7.5 kgs of honey from one of the supers we took off, last week; so far so good.  The other super was however stuffed full of heather honey so we couldn't extract any of it! Agghhhh!

We had planned to put the empty supers back on the hives for the bees to clean up. Now we're going to put the honey back as winter feed!

To compound the issues, the bee escapes didn't do their job.  So where we were originally planning to remove a cleared deep and super we now were fighting off a load of bees happily residing in the hive!

So after the surprise yesterday (and a hasty retreat given the gloomy weather) I went back this morning.  I put the heather honey immediately above the brood chamber, and the cleared frame above this. Then went on a bee escape (fingers crossed this time) and the supers I added from the combined hive last week (yes, that seemed to have worked ok) and finally the deep and super I had from the other hive that didn't clear. 

Outer cover

Inner cover

Deep

Super

Super

Super

Bee escape

Super - for cleaning

Super - full of heather honey

Queen excluder

Deep

Base board

This is now quite a tall hive that one way or another next week will be significantly smaller. If the supers clear we will extract them or leave on as feed!

It all seems a bit pointless planning ahead! We will see where we are next week.

Autumn Preparations...

Somehow I'm feeling organised!  I'm not sure why, but I think it's because I have started preparing for the Autum now!

Ok, so I will confess I probably was forced into it, but still, it's a start!

I nominally have 2 hives at the apiary, and Dave has 2.  We help each other out, but we kind of think we each have our own!  Anyway, one of my hives has been quite prodigious; I extracted 51 lbs of honey in July.  However, this hive became Queenless (I don't really know why) but continued to produce honey and as of last weekend I had 4 supers stacked on it. Two are pretty much capped and the other two are perhaps 50% full.

The other hive I have was 'sick' earlier in April but it pulled through and has left me with a crammed full super of capped honey. There is a queen in this one!

So back to Autumn management. What to do with the Queenless hive? Well, I decided it was better to not generate problems next spring by not having equipment available for new splits and swarm control, so I united the hives.

I removed two full supers and I will extract honey from these. The resulting combined hive now looks like this...

Outer cover

Inner cover

Deep

Super

Bee escape

Super

Super

Newspaper

Queen excluder

Deep

Base board

The idea is to keep the Queen way down in the hive, to clear and then remove the deep and a super from the top (for later use?) and to leave two supers of stores to the bees for the Autumn.  If all goes well (that's got to happen at some point, right?) I'll further reduce the hive for winter - but I'll move full stores from the 'removed' deep into the deep at the bottom!

I will then have lots of equipment and drawn frames for the coming spring!

The mite count I did last week showed some moderate number of mites.  I'll treat once things have settled down after the combination!  Depending on the count level then I will treat with MAQS or try oxalic acid for the first time!!!

It's a plan of sorts!