A Year on a Honey Farm: April : 35


advantage of this crop. I add an extra brood box or one of our adapted supers with mini frames for extra space to rear brood. I want these extra bees more than I want the honey. The extra bees and frames of brood that will be reared in these two different boxes while on the rape will be the bees that will populate both the mating nuclei that will go on to rear our new season queens and the six-frame nuclei we need to establish for sale. When the queen is laying in, and the bees are occupying, both brood boxes in the double- brood colonies on the rape, we will split these hives to make our new nuclei. We need to establish 100 six-frame nucleus colonies this year so the early abundance of both bees and brood enables us to do this. These will be the colonies that will receive our fi rst queens of 2015 and go out for sale to our customers.


Oilseed Rape Honey Although bees and extra brood


are our main priority when it comes to working the oilseed rape, in a good year we will also add supers to the hives mentioned earlier, to collect any excess honey. Adding supers also gives the colony extra space resulting in less congestion which, in itself, will reduce the likelihood of swarming.


On the rape, I never use supers that have frames of wired foundation in them. The main reason for this is that there are times when the workload on the farm is so great that we do not always get the opportunity to extract the honey as soon as we would like. When we do fi nally get round to harvesting it from the hives it has been known to be solid and not suitable for conventional extraction.


April 2015 Vol 97 No 4


On these occasions we need to cut out the complete combs and melt them on our large heated trays and recover the separated melted honey and wax. The wax can then be exchanged for new foundation at a later date and the honey bucketed and stored. It is much easier for us and faster to cut out unwired frames in these circumstances.


Queen Rearing Progress


Our queen rearing programme


is progressing well. Our drone- breeding colonies have now received their frames of drone foundation. These frames have been drawn and the queens have laid in them. So, in a few weeks we will have young drones available to mate with our virgin queens once they mature.


All the stands have been checked in the mating apiaries and my partner Evelin has been busy cleaning the mating nuclei in readiness for their new occupants which will be taken from the mini-nuc supers on the oilseed rape.


Preparatory Work There is still plenty of


preparatory work being done. Nearly all the equipment needed for the coming months is now on site and equipment already here has been cleaned and made ready for use. Everything


My shelves are fully stocked once again


Checking for queen cells, an April to July routine


needs to be on hand now for when it is needed. We cannot afford to waste time looking for things which should have been prepared earlier. The bees are looking very


strong and we are hopeful the coming months are going to be fruitful, but who knows? We just need to be ready for every eventuality.


Next Month


We will take an in-depth view at our queen rearing process. ♠ Contact


Duncan Simmons, Simmons Apiaries, Trematon Villa, Trematon, Saltash, Cornwall PL12 4RS. Tel: 07775 590935; e-mail: beeboyuk@aol.com


Duncan Simmons has been keeping bees since 1971, after a neighbour introduced him to these amazing little creatures at the age of nine. In the 1980s he turned an absorbing hobby into a successful full-time business, supplying Fortnum & Mason and Harrods amongst others. Now in his fi fties, he concentrates on queen rearing and producing nuclei from his Cornwall-based apiaries.


Two of our purpose-built bee trailers


www.bee-craft.com


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