Exciting news from Andysworld! All of the Meltonby Honey from the 2023 season has officially sold out. But no need to worry—we’ve just stocked up on our fresh Summer Honey from 2024! Head over to our online store now to grab your jar: meltonbyhoney.com.
Once it’s gone it’s gone ! There will be no more for 2024 ! (it’s a wonder of nature we have any!)
After clearing out the fish house and removing the empty tanks, I’ve repurposed the shelves to store winter feed for the bees. This year, I’ve decided to switch from using commercial Ambrosia syrup, which comes in 18-liter (12kg) containers. Although effective, the syrup is heavy, messy, and liquid, and the bees tend to consume it too quickly. This rapid consumption can overcrowd the brood box, reducing the space available for the queen to lay eggs.
To address this, I’ve decided to switch to commercial bakers fondant for winter feeding. Since it’s solid, the bees will consume it more slowly, allowing them to store it over time. It’s essentially the same fondant used in Fondant Fancies, making it a practical and less messy alternative.
It’s time for the late summer harvest, and what a challenging year it has been. Poor weather has led to subpar forage and very low honey stores throughout the season. However, in this last warm stretch of August, things have turned around, and the bees have been busier than ever. As you can see in the photo, the hives are getting smaller now. This happens as we remove the honey-filled boxes, known as supers or shallows. During the peak months of June and July, the hives expand to accommodate up to 150,000 bees. Since that many bees can’t fit into just the brood box—the box at the bottom where the queen lays her eggs and the nurse bees care for the larvae—we add extra space. Now, it’s time to remove those heavy honey-laden boxes and take them to the honey room to begin the long, sticky, and messy process of extracting honey. With any luck, this year’s harvest will exceed our expectations, and we may even have some summer honey for 2024.
So what did you do with your Sunday! I started to label this years (2024) Summer Honey.
The majority of this year’s summer honey which was extracted weeks ago was delivered to pre-paid Wedding Orders as Honey favours.
The next batch which was extracted was not ripe – the water content tested at above 20% – which according to the Honey Legislation Act 2015 is technically not honey so it cannot be sold , and there is a risk it can ferment in the jars – so it was all fed back to the bees for them to deal with it correctly and this will be removed and extracted at the end of August!
This is just one of many issues we’ve had this year, see my monthly notes!
January/February 2024 – Feeding fondant – winter far too warm bees too active and ate through their winter stores too quick.
March 2024 – All hives and nucleus colonies went through the winter well – still feeding fondant
April 2024 – Bees expanding very quickly forage available – good hawthorn, blossom on fruit trees although this year no canola in the area! had to start Demeree and putting honey boxes into hives as the bees were expanding very quickly!
May 2024 – Disaster weather turns cold – large colonies need feeding eating 2.5kg a fondant a week! Many reports across the UK of starvation, queens stop laying, failing , colonies that showed signs of swarming have stopped!Majority of reared queens have failed!
June/July 2024 – Weather continued to be poor and a wash out! A few late swarms around
August 2024 – Weather getting warmer – a few honey flows – there could be some summer honey! Extracted honey not ripe! Fed back to bees!
September 2024 – Remove all surplus honey, and feeding and treating for winter, and bringing hives home for winter.
It’s time to reboot Andysworld! Blog. I think some of you may have missed tales from Andysworld! Oh if your fedup of this email in you inbox, let me know and I’ll remove you from the list!
I just don’t get much time anymore to keep the Andysworld! blog updated, with all the other social channels, Experts Exchange, VMware vExpert programs and BEEKEEPING which takes up a lot of my time now, over 12 months ago I have up my allotment to spend more time with the bees!
So lets have some bee photographs from this afternoons check, this is a colony of bees, split last year, taken over winter in a small nucleus (6 frames) the nucleus was called N1, so this is H11 (hive 11) which has 11 frames of honey bees, the honey bees are pure Buckfast bees, if you look carefully you will see they are mostly yellow, compared to the native black bees, which has hybridize today with most local strains which are darker. (Hint if you look at the queen in the first photo marked green (for 2024!), you will notice she is yellow/orange/ginger in colour rather than a dark black/brown, this indicates the yellowish colour that the Buckfast strain has, kept because they are easy to work, and non-aggressive H11 is a lovely colony to work compare to those in H3 ! Double gloves for H3 !
It’s out there now, my secret is out, I love the buddleia bushes, or more commonly known as the butterfly bush, even the common pink version which grows wild, maybe it’s the plant which attracts hundreds of insects and butterflies, and takes me back to my youth and “My Creature Club!” – hey if your reading Skeggy! Hello!
more recently there are some attractive colour variants, under the name of buddleia davidii, which are a dark blue or dark purple, and a deeper purple called “Dark Knight”, if you do not like the pink version, and also a white, you cannot mistake them, they are everywhere in the country, and seem to do very well, on old factory works, old building works etc
Buddleja davidii, not in flower yet!
But my favourite buddleia globosa, which is a buddleia bush, with small orange balls! It’s not until you get up close that you can see the florets are the same as a traditional buddleia bush but organised into orange balls!
Buddleja globosa
Buddleja globosa
Buddleja globosa
I have a few in my garden, a B.davidii and also I’m lucky to have two B. globosa, I’ve always planted buddleia in my gardens, but never seen the B. globosa for sale in garden centres, I took 10 cuttings from a plant when I lived in Warren Farm, which was the first time I had ever seen the plant, and it’s taken many many years for the plants to establish and now start to flower.
Bumble bee on Buddleja globosa
and the bumblebees love them as well!
If you do plant a Buddleja make sure you prune it because they can go wild!
The Bumble Bees are enjoying the warm weather, it stated it was 33/34 degrees C in my car this morning! This is the third year I’ve had bumble bees, they arrived on the 4th July, and are doing much better, ordering them later than earlier in the year, with the Summer forage now available.
External Temperature 33 Degrees C!
and it’s not honey….it takes 7kg of honey to produce 1kg of bees wax! Bees wax burns clean with no soot, so that’s why it was favored in Churches and Monasteries, because it does not stain the ceilings! and many say that’s why Monks kept bees! Wax candles are usually made from paraffin!
You can see Sheldon’s support of beeswax candles here:-
As the season, winds down, I’ve started to tidy up and render this years bees wax down for wax exchange. This is from bees wax, I’ve been collecting all year, after inspections, e.g. removed from hives, queen excluders, and other bits of brace comb. Later in the year, I’ll take this wax and exchange it for foundation at Thorne. Foundation is the starter strips we use for bees to use as a template to draw out their comb. Thorne just add this and blend this with their other sources to create the foundation, so no waste, and completely recycled!
Here are some fantastic pictures of the process at Thorne, when I was lucky enough to visit, and have a tour around the factory by Gill Smith (Director and Owner of Thorne), in their Centenary year (2013).
Don’t forget Thorne Rand Open and Sale Day – Saturday 17th October, 10am.
Snow in the "Shire"!
Second time this year, that it’s snowed. so went down to the apiary, to check on the bees, and took some photos in the glorious sunshine.
Andy's Apiary
The colonies were treated by vaporising with oxalic acid crystals, one week ago, to reduce the levels of phoretic varroa destructor mites, which at this time of year are actually living on the honey bees (Apis mellifera), because my colonies are broodless at present.
The varroa destructor mite was introduced into the UK, in 1992, honey bees (Apis mellifera) have no natural defence to it, and we need to check regularly, as part of our integrated pest management, to ensure the levels are kept low, it cannot be completely eradicated (yet!), over populations of varroa destructor, can lead to colony collapse, it’s also a vector for disease and viruses in honey bees (Apis mellifera). Varroa destructor reproduce by female mite enters the brood cell, with bee larva, just before the cell is capped, and lays her eggs on the bee larva, when the cell is uncapped, out come the young mites. So, no brood, no larva, all the mites on on the bees, so an easy target to treat, hence why we treat in broodless periods, between November – February.
How do we know, they have mites, we use a sticky inspection board, inserted into the bottom of the hive, the mites drop off the bees, and stick on the board, and then we count them! (yes they can easily be seen with the naked eye!).
sticky inspection board to count varroa destructor mites, brownish spot = mite !
a close up of some varroa destructor mites
close up varroa destructor mites, you can see their legs or mouth parts
and I added 2.5kg of ambrosia fondant to each hive. (An insurance policy, to prevent them starving – to help feed them during the winter period), and they are securely lashed down, using hive straps.
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The winter approaches fast, I’m now taking the honey off the hives, uniting the colonies to make them stronger over the winter, treating them for varroa (mite!), and moving them to their new home…
Hive on the move, on my hive barrow (I built!), on the far right of the picture you can just make out, a nucleus box (half a hive), left to catch any stragglers left!
This is the first hive on it’s travels, this hive has given me 75kg of honey this year.
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