Hi Folks,
This year is going to be a quiet one in relation to honey production. The indications are that there will be no honey flow this season in my immediate area. Combined with a very dry winter and early the bees will only bring in enough nectar to keep them going. At the moment there is a few native bush plants flowering and the stringy bark is also in bloom. Pollen is always abundant throughout the year but nectar is not always available due to the multiple years between flowering cycles on our Eucalypts. After three good years, the trees are all out of sequence and nothing is due to bud up until next year. The shed is full of honey so I?m not complaining. Swarm control will be the area that will produce the most work this season so there will be plenty of time to focus on other things.
When I first started in beekeeping, I built quite a few Snelgrove boards to use in the apiary. They got a bit of use early on but tended to fall out of favour over time. This year I will have the time to give them some use as I want to see I how well they perform in a few specialised tasks. I intend to experiment with them in a number of areas. These will include:
1) swarm control
2) splitting hives
3) making queen cells
4) increasing honey production (especially for comb production)
5) running a two queen hive.
I won?t be able to achieve all of the goals due to the dry conditions but I will learn a bit more about timing etc so that I can take advantage of the board during a good season. The spring build up will be slow this year so I will have a bit of time before the boards come into use. I?m hoping that you guys can teach me a few tricks to help with some of these techniques. As of two weeks ago, my home yard showed very little evidence of expansion or drone cell production in the hives. I will start checking in a few days time to see if the situation has changed. Here is a photo of one of the 8 frame boards that I made. It?s basically a double screen board with a few more fancy attachments. Hope to hear from you soon.
Cheers
Les