August 2025

Alan Riach  – What Happened to the Summer Crop?

It has been a strange year. As with Spring, the summer flowers were early and brief, which has made for a rather meagre summer honey harvest, unless you were lucky enough to be near phacelia or field beans. The June gap was quite severe in the Lothians and that along with lots of colonies with young queens not yet in lay meant that many of the colonies were not quite ready for the unusually early summer flowers. There was a yield from the lime but rather brief. The bees were quickly pushed to searching out the rosebay willowherb and Himalayan balsam, both of which were early. Once the rosebay flowers are more than halfway up the flower stalk, the nectar yield reduces.

Lack of nectar in late summer inevitably leads to robbing. Wasps get a bad press for robbing (and indeed they do rob), because they are very visible, but by far the most serious robbing is carried out by honeybees from neighbouring strong colonies. When colonies are populous and nectar in short supply, those lovely honeybees of yours are absolute opportunists. Close down the entrances in weak hives to one or two bee widths and keep an eye out for robbing activity. Weak hive entrances can also be shielded by leaning a slate or piece of glass or other material that will stay in place in the wind. The robbers don’t like having to go round the edges of the slate but the occupants of the weak hive will find their way in and out without trouble.

One drawback of these “early times” is that the colonies are going to struggle to put some stores in the brood boxes as the queens reduce laying rates. This means we are going to have to think of early and generous feeding. If you think that the supers are not going to fill much more, by all means harvest the honey, but do feed immediately after removing the supers – it is easy to lose a colony due to starvation after removing all the supers, especially if there is not much stores in the brood box. It looks like it will have to be a year of heavy autumn feeding.

Remember, keep an eye on stores – if there are no stores in supers or in the brood box, then feed immediately, whatever time of year it is.

By mid-August, this year you may be harvesting your summer honey in preparation for feeding in the latter part of Aug/beginning of September. The bees will have super frames in various states of completion, part capped etc. If there is honey that is very unripe, you can “double extract”. First, put all frames through the extractor without uncapping. The uncapped, unripe honey will quickly fly out. (Collect this and feed it back to the bees once all your supers have been taken off and the bees will store it down in the broodbox). Now uncap the frames and extract the ripe honey for use. Although this double handling may sound labour intensive, it isn’t really, as the first time through the extractor without uncapping is very quick. However, if you are using a tangential extractor, be gentle as the uncapped honey applies quite a force on the frames.

With all good hope, some EMBA members and their bees went to the heather on the site near W. Linton. The heather looked a bit sparse but always difficult to say on heather sites without having the benefits of a drone camera to scout over the brow of the hill. There is a Heather Picnic planned at the site in towards end Aug (Sun 24 th Aug- Secretary to confirm). The Heather Picnic is always a good opportunity for an end of season get-together, often under umbrella or gazebo. I think an area has been identified sufficiently far away from the grumpy heather gatherers. Assuming a good heather crop, you can either cut-comb or press. Heather presses are slightly specialised devices because of the thixotropic (jellyish) nature of Ling Heather honey. Heather honey must be pressed in small filter cloth parcels (cheeses) placed between grooved boards to allow the honey to escape along the grooves. Stainless mesh prevents the cloths from blocking the grooves.

You should now be checking for varroa and treating, if necessary, as high varroa loads at this time of year will produce weakened winter bees. See the Varroa Management document on Beebase for advice. If loads are ok, then you can leave until Christmas and if checks then are beyond the limit, treat with a recommended oxalic acid treatment either trickle or vapor.

Some of you may have ended up with an overabundance of colonies. Uniting with the paper method is the most foolproof method. Choose which queen you want to keep either dispatching one to that great apiary in the sky or setting her up in a poly Nuc to take through winter. Place paper on the top of the lower broodbox and make a few slits with the edge of the hive tool and place the second colony on top. There is a tendency for the paper to blow off just as you are placing the top box. Use two bulldog clips as weights hanging on the paper, one either side of the hive to keep it in place.

Congratulations to all who have passed their SBA Junior or Basic Beekeeping exam. For those thinking of sitting a module on 15 th of November, try and join (or form) a study group as that makes preparation so much more enjoyable and effective.

The committee appreciates feedback and new ideas for future activities.
Alan Riach