Diary of a Museum of London Beekeeper: part 2
August 11, 2010 About my museum job, BlogsWednesday August 4th
Today was very exciting, we had to check what use the bees had made of the 4 litres of sugar solution that we gave them last week. To my amazement the feeder was dry, the bees had taken the lot! Brian was not in the least surprised, this was exactly what he had expected. Now that the summer is drawing to a close, we will need to give them sugar every week, to help them to make enough honey to see them through the winter. There won’t be any Museum of London honey for the humans this year. Brian suggested using a different kind of feeder, one which can be topped up. The weather today was wet and windy. Bees don’t like this sort of weather, so we decided to disturb them as little as possible. My homework this week is to make more bee food for next Wednesday.
Wednesday August 11th
Today was bright and sunny, unlike last week’s overcast skies and heavy rain. A good day for visiting the bees. There was a lot of activity at the front of the hive, more than previous weeks, very promising! The bees had been busy, some previously empty frames now contain honey. Six frames now contain brood, pupae, larvae and eggs. So the queen is still laying, although it is late in the season. We set up the refillable feeder. This is a box with a compartment that bees can climb into from the hive. The sugar solution in this compartment is refilled from a reservoir, which can easily be topped up. The gap between the two is too small to allow bees (lured by the sugar) to slip through and drown. Brian also placed some twigs in the feeder compartment for the bees to stand on. Although this compartment contains only a small volume, the plastic sides do not allow a bee’s feet to grip easily and sometimes they fall in and drown. A little bit of advice, if you want to avoid being stung near a beehive, don’t wear velvet. Velvet tangles their little feet and they hate it. It makes them very angry! The new feeder only holds about two and a half litres of sugar solution. I will be checking on the bees on Friday, to see if they need a top up. Homework for this week is to make more bee food.
I plan to keep you up to date with what is going on in the beehive for the remainder of the summer and into the winter when things quieten down. To make this easier I have been added as an author for the museum’s blog pages. Look up for updates from me personally from next week.