January 2012
Happy New Year.
I didn't get all the boxes extracted & I'm glad I didn't because a few colonies were getting a little light, so I put some of the remaining supers back on (killing two birds with one stone) these colonies should now have plenty of food for the rest of the winter.
There are just two apiaries to treat with Oxalic, this should be completed within a couple of days, then that's all of them done.
Average colony strength seems to be around 8 frames, there are a few down to just three frames, we found 1 colony that was on 20 frames, this is located on the moors at 1000ft above sea level, it should be ok for food as it's as heavy as lead, but I don't think its such a good thing for it to be so big at this time of year, it was also a little shirty so will be reassessed in spring.
We have lost one nucleus colony to date, but it's early days yet.
As usual, we are behind with waxing up the supers we need for this season, every time I have it in mind that this job would be done by now, but so far haven't been able to do this, & would be even further behind if my father didn't put hour after hour in doing this job for me along with making new frames.
