Too fat to fly?

I should have known something was up last week; there were no eggs in one of the hives - so either the queen was dead, or she had stopped laying.

I assumed she'd stopped laying. It was the convenient option - I didn't want to hunt through the colony to find the queen because it was hot and the bees were irritable, and anyway I had a simple explanation; the hive reeks!

The pong was coming from a thymol and eucalyptus treatment I had used to kill varroa mites (see Noah the varroa). It's one of the few 'organic' treatments against varroa and is surprisingly effective, but it stinks of Vick's VapoRub. The bees hate it so much that they would rather sit on the outside of the hive than put up with the stench within.

No wonder then that the queen stops laying, and a quick check on the internet confirmed my suspicions. As events proved, I was right.... but for the wrong reason, as I found out yesterday lunch time when I suddenly noticed a lot of bees flying around the garden.

There were hundreds circling around; far too many for the play flights of young bees (see Biggles learns to fly). It looked like they were swarming which left me astonished because it's very late in the year for swarms. For a moment I wondered whether the bees had finally had enough of the 'VapoRub' and simple absconded!

I watched expecting them to disappear over the horizon but instead within 10 minutes they had settled on a nearby fence. As you can see, it's a small swarm and within the hour it was safely housed in a little 'nuc' box.

I doubted they would stay and sure enough within two hours the sky was once again full of bees, only this time they settled in a nearby tree, fifteen feet above the ground.

Queuing to get back in the 'nuc'

"Blow it!" I said, "I'm not clambering up a ladder to re-home them so that they can just fly off again. It's going to rain tomorrow so getting cold and wet should teach them a lesson."

I think they heard me because within half an hour they had returned to the 'nuc' box and were lining up to get back inside. It was a good decision because it's been raining all day!


If the queen starts laying again they'll remain in the box, but why did she stop laying in the first place?

Well it wasn't the 'VapoRub'. Instead it was a strict diet that the bees had put the queen on so that she could lose weight and be able to fly.

I wonder whether Michael O'Leary has contemplated a similar strategy for those wanting fly Ryanair?

Show me the honey!

This year's summer honey is good - really good.

I knew it was going to be particularly tasty when I saw what the bees were foraging on: White clover - which gives the honey a wonderful floral aroma; lime blossom - which provides a hint of mint; and small quantities of lavender, oregano, verbena, veronica and countless other flowers, including knapweed.

Honey fresh from the comb

Knapweed makes a dark-coloured honey which has a taste reminiscent liquorice, and when first saw the honey in the honey buckets I was concerned it would taste like a well-known brand from Bassett's!

However, the hay in Stag Meadow was cut earlier than normal this year, just as the knapweed was in flower. Besides killing a thousand or more foraging bees with the grass-cutters, the loss of forage resulted in a smaller honey crop.

But what was lost in quantity has been made up for in quality because there is just enough knapweed in the honey to give it a rich golden colour with a nuance of liquorice, but not enough to detract from the other flavours.

Special Reserve Honey

Better still, there's no bitter after-taste which seemed to mar much of the local honey last year. This year's crop looks good, and tastes even better.

Talking of Tastes - I'll suggest to Karen that she keeps this honey as a 'Special Reserve' for those who really appreciate great local food.

Not that the less discerning should worry; it's been a good year for the bees and I'm sure there will be plenty of other local honey available - just not as good as mine!