Maximising your honey crop

A talk by Brian Durke of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Date: Thursday 27 February 2003

Venue: Church Rooms, Stow on the Wold

Notes by Jeremy Voaden 

Factors affecting honey crop

· Your bees – The type of bee (race), any disease problems, temperament

· Colony Management-Maximum honey yield requires maximum size of colony at the right time of year when the nectar flows

· Forage – Nectar source

Various ways of increasing your honey yield

· Having bees that will not eat all their stored honey

· Having bees that are good collectors of nectar

Some bees produce large colonies but also consume a lot of stores.

· Select and support the better colonies in your apiary. If you choose to breed bees, seek good guidance from the literature and other beekeepers. Selecting solely from the best colonies may result in “hybrid vigour” followed by poor colonies. To start with, consider getting rid of / re-queening your worst colonies.

· Think about what race of bee you want to work with. Italian bees have a reputation of good honey producers but they consume a lot of their stores. Darker bees don’t consume as much.

· Having colonies in the right place at the right time

· Having strong colonies when the nectar is available

· Maximise nectar flow from the sequence of sources as the year progresses

Forage / Nectar sources

· Early crops e.g. Blackthorn, Hawthorn, Dandelion “Top fruit”, Oil Seed Rape. Beware (you may need to feed) of the “June Gap” between the spring and summer flowers! Field Beans are useful, producing nectar at this time

· Summer crops e.g Dandelion, Berries & Currants, Willow Herb, Lime, Horse Chestnut, Whie Clover, Blackberry

· Autumn Crops e.g. Ling, Bell Heather, Ivy, Old Man’s Beard

· If you plan to take your bees to the heather, think about having a young queen

Features of strong colonies

· Disease Free

· Often have a young queen

· Stimulate your bees. You can consider stimulating them in February which will increase the colony size but beware the risk of “Blackthorn winter” in March! Larger colonies consume more stores.

· Practice pro-active swarm control. One recommended method of doing this is

The Two Queen Swarm Control System

You can build up through stimulation

· Then divide them to control swarming

· Then recombine them to give maximum size

The method is very useful as it

· Automatically re-queens the colony without swarming taking place

· Produces ideal colony size if you want to take your bees to the heather

· Reduces need for inspection for swarm control

Full details are set out in Ron Brown’s book “Honey Bees - A Guide to Management” (The Crowood Press, 1998 ISBN 1 86126 174 8)