Early Cold Snap, Seeking Sunlight, A Quilted Top Cover.

I've had my 8 frame nuc at my parents' place for a week now and the cool weather has hot with vengeance: the coldest May maximum temp for decades. The snow fields received a drop of 50cm of snow, five weeks before the start of the season.
I checked my baby hive through the week and it was very busy with bees added lots of sealed honey. In fact it was too busy to lift a frame without upsetting them. They're a lively enough bunch anyhow.
But it was concerning to see them not working this afternoon, knowing they were in "heat generation mode" and using up honey stores already, before winter is officially underway.
I also noticed that the sun goes of the hive in the early afternoon. So, I now want to move them out of the shade about 2 minutes and add a quilted cover. This is just a standard lid, hessian tracked across it's bottom and filled with wood shavings. This adds insulation and absorbs moisture which is manufactured by the bees heating the hive in cold conditions. Moisture is destructive to honey stores and the structure of the hive.

Comments

Cycle Touring

Well I haven't riden beyond abput 40k's yet. But I've read lots of posts, articles and ebooks by long distance cyclists and I'm developing a body of useful knowledge. There must be a shiteload of interest in cycling because the amount of advertising, spam and pseudo advertising through blogs and books, is mind numbing. Honestly, every Goggle search reveals pages of crap: buy this bike, it'll make you feel alive, take you places you only dreamed of, make you feel cool or other amazing feats. Then there are the experts that push the novice towards high cost options, daily gym workouts and guided tours. All depressing reading. But occasionally there are gems. Just note i read an article by Magda in New York who wrote about her first 500 mile ride. She said something profound: "I hate experts. I wantto start a movement of people that defy experts and go on great adventures". Or words to t...

More Spring Bee Lessons

Well my bees beat me up these last two weeks. To be fair though it was mostly my fault. So, I started with radix hives; two at coastal Merewether and two on my property near Paterson. Obviously the Merewether hives produced through winter and with a bit of an up-change in the weather they needed space for brood and honey. This caught me out (Lesson 1: don't procrastinate or aim to do the least amount of work. In other words don't be lazy.) I then had to rush around buying and assembling frames. Penders Bees reported that from their orders it's a bumper season. But I really need to not be so unprepared again. Adding Supers and extracting helped create space, but I'll be extracting again very soon with my spanking new machine. Unfortunately in hive #4 the Queen spent the winter above the Excluder and it really knocked them about. Removing the Excluder (which was a third full of dead Drones) got them working ok again. ...

Deposit on GTR

This is the ad on Gumtree that I noticed yesterday. An old original Greenspeed GTR which I understand was THE touring model out it's time and has earned a reputation as a hard working, long lasting trike. I read a fantastic tutorial online on how to restore this exact model and it's pretty straightforward and affordable. But it looks like it won't need much attention. I believe that because it is a rigid frame, ie: non folding, that it's had little use. The current owner has ridden it once in 5 years, I think he said. That tutorial also showed how 2.5" little fats can be fitted. A good option for the t future. One guy, responding to the tutorial I think, wrote that he rode his GTR over 75 000 kilometres. He regularly "got air" at the local ramp and committed and did Redux tours on her, and only decommissioned her when she "fell off the roof of [his] car"! Ye gads! So I've made a deposit and hope t...

Novice Beekeeper

Search This Blog