Hi everyone

Bad weather over here, so sometime to inform you about the state of our
beekeeping in the south of the world, particularly the south of Chile.

As reported before, after a mild winter we had a very wet spring. October
and November demanded heavy feeding to keep the colonies alive.

In december colonies started to maintain themself.  In some yards a heavy
flow of Trifolium repens made them swarm. Temperature slowly build up and
colonies recover. For the end of december we were in the 30 ºC. The first 15
days of january were excelent.

All blooms are some 20 to 30 days behind past year and getting closer to
"average".

Not much honey tough, in spite of the good weather and lots of floral
sources. Around 30 kg per hive in average.

In the plain we didn't harvest a kg. Yes we have a new hidraulic boom and
moved the hives "with all its honey" to the mountains getting out of
bluberries. We moved 3 decked hives, one super full of honey and also some
more in the brood box, particularly on the colonies that had swarmed.

In the mountain we managed them, giving space for the queen to lay, moving
the honey up, and leaving a full empty super ontop of the queen excluder.

All the colonies that had swarmed and didn't have a queen of only a virgin
were potenciated with a nuc.

We have done around 1500 nucs in the plain to keep the colonies for
swarming.

In the mountain we had a fast flow of Tiaca (Caldcluvia paniculata) that as
usual builded up from the bottom to the top of the mountains. The flow is
still on and maybe will give us 1.5 up to 2 full supers.

There is a cold front coming in by wednesday, some rain for 4 days or so.
Colonies are expected to seal the honey during that time.

We will start harvesting monday 8th. Probably some 30 tons we have in the
supers already.

If we do not have a frost on wednesday night, we will have a nice Ulmo
(Eucriptia cordifolia) bloom following harvesting. And hopefully some 20
more tons could be gathered.

This tuesday I will irradiated my pollen (400 kg) and prepared my own
patties (PANAPI 6% pollen). We will give a kilo to each productive hive, and
probably half a kilo to each nuc to boost them before autum. After Ulmo, and
when golden rod start blooming we will give another dose of Panapi with
sacarose syrup to prepare them for winter. Feed them fumagilin and treat
varroa with formic pads.

Lots to do.

The price is firm around us$3 per kilo, and because there is not much honey,
and the honey available is suspect to have high amounts of Pirrilozidine
alkaloids (2000 ppb), the price should go up a bit further.

On the 22th of february there will be a earing at Brussels about those
alkaloids. Anyone could report from europe?



-- 
Juanse Barros J.
APIZUR S.A.
Carrera 695
Gorbea - CHILE
+56-45-271693
08-3613310
http://apiaraucania.blogspot.com/
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