An ET wrote: "It would be interesting to compare trends (number up + ,or numbers down-) and then to compare management objectives and style."
I have had no losses in my 16 hives over the recent winter. The most crowded apiary is that shared with my apprentice, Sarah, at her Bee Happy Plants nursery. I have 2 top bar hives there, one of which has a mesh floor, the drawer beneath which Sarah checks daily for mite drop, pupal debris drop and pollen, which she samples to record what the bees are working on when. We shall soon get microscopes out to have a session at that. Sarah has a TBH she built and a polystyrene National she was given. My TBHs are half cylinders to enable the bees to draw their natural, catenary shaped, combs and the entrance at the sunny end as the bees rear their brood near the entrance and store their stores towards the rear. The top bars, are 17" long which match those of National frames so I can take nuclei if desired.
The second most crowded apiary, which is on Portland, has 3 hives which were populated by self-hiving swarms last summer, those hives being empty because the hives had been destroyed by horses the previous winter. They are National hives. The remainder of the apiaries have 1 or 2 hives each.
I take a crop from my stacking box hives usually in September when they have reduced the brood nest somewhat and packed it around with stores. Some I overwinter in a single brood box, others with a part filled super. I don't feed sugar. I shall take a crop of surplus honey from my TBHs in a week or two when dandelions etc are flourishing, knowing that it is real honey and not partially recycled sugar and that it is truly surplus to the bees' requirements.
Honey is rather a sticky embarrassment (I don't eat it every week) that helps the hobby pay for itself. Apart from the beekeeper, the worst enemy of a hive of bees is another hive of bees. My apiary sites vary between a paddock on the Isle of Portland, jutting into the English Channel, an organic orchard 25 miles inland, an organic farm, a Council yard in a woody area and a corner of a sheep meadow and a cider orchard. I have been asked to place hives on a yet-to-be-built solar farm where they intend to establish 20 acres of wild flowers.
I try to avoid industrial agriculture and most of my sites are either pleasant peaceful places or else where I will be awarded a cup of tea a slice of cake and a natter when I visit.
I treat for Varroa with a tea-bag of thymol in September and 5cc/seam of bees of 3.2% oxalic at the turn of the year.
About half a dozen of us locally have just started a bee breeding group along the lines suggested by BIBBA, the Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders' Association. It's very early days yet but we hope to increase numbers of Amm bees which form about 50% of the DNA hereabouts and also to reduce Varroa treatments.
I probably spend more time talking and writing about bees than I do playing with them.
Chris
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