Last grafting in, what I will say has been the most complicated season in my life with the queens. The weather wizards haven't been nice to us. Hopefully they provide some nice weather in the weeks to come, as something must be saved for us. Still decent cells in July

The queen season is coming to an end and we are about to close a big export order of random mated queens. Still some random mated queens, and a lot of island mated to be taken care of. After a pretty hectic season it's actually nice to get down to a more normal work pace 😎

Autumn vibes in a nuc apiary. Still busy looking for pollen when the weather is for it.

In 🇪🇺 today, 1️⃣ out of every 2️⃣ imported honey jars is fraudulent! Fraud techniques are numerous and difficult to detect, which explains their constant increase according to official figures collected by the European Commission. The consequences of these fraudulent imports are

Time for the last round of syrup, before it gets too cold. Had frost in the weekend and only a few+degrees this morning. Last round is more of a top up, as the main feeding is done. +8 frame Dadant colonies, after the heather, makes a good starting point for the winter ☺️

Out mounting the remaining mouse guards today, as the winter has really set in now. A pleasure to be out in the frosty weather instead of all the rain and mud of the autumn. Hives were nice and heavy, but one site had taken a beat from the easterly storm a couple of weeks ago 🫤

Important vote today in EU parliament on honest honey labelling. Need to list all countries of origin on labels

"Boss, I can't get to work today, the track to the workshop is closed" 😉 Quite happy to have all the work at the home premises today. Most roads are simply closed from snow. Ours was opened around 10 o'clock this morning. Even 2 Piranha APC got stuck in the snow this night.

Spending the weekend in Telford at The Beekeeping Show and meeting good colleagues. Some are old acquaintances, others are contacts for years but never met in person. Great weekend and thank you for the show 😊

Decided that the season of mice invasion is over, so have started to remove mouse guards. It's a balance between the mice and the risk of losing pollen in the guards. Temperature is still too low for true flying, but when everything starts we won't be able to keep up.

I am soon 4 years old, and I am a bit tired. But still able to build up a nuc colony 😉 Maybe I should consider a new pair of wings before I plan to fly too far 🤔 Queen 196 of the line IN139. Old reliable line, who produced very gentle bees and quite big colonies.

A week ago it was hard to believe, that both the bees and us would be ready to start up the queen production at the usual 15th May. But now it seems like both humans and bees are starting to believe in things again ☺️ Trimming of the finisher cellbuilders is progressing well.

Grafting started yesterday. Despite the very late spring, the finishers actually looks quite good. Third box will be added over the next week

Was on Tunø yesterday with the 2nd batch for island mating. Despite the poor weather the droneproviders actually look really good. The backside of the story is that they only look good due to intense feeding. Without the feeding, no new drones... What a crappy season!

After a horrendous start to the season for queens, with the weather doing everything it could to prevent any sort of success and knock down any semblance of confidence, gentler winds are now beginning to blow upon us. Nice when things finally work out 😊 Happy midsummer 😎

Bees are strange, and we will never fully understand them - and that's maybe where the fascination lays. We have had the most extreme start of the season, and honey was more or less written off. But some apiaries (the breeding unit) are actually yielding surprisingly good.

I can see the end of the extraction of the summer honey. An absolutely poor season here in the north, on both summer honey and queen production. Only the heather seems to have yielded well.

First frost this morning. What a pleasure September has been, after a 'summer' that just washed away. Lots of sun and the temperature we should have had in July. September summer doesn't give us any honey, but it recharges the batteries of the beekeeper 😎

That's some nice combs of heather honey 🍯🤩

Looking a bit around on Bluesky. Might move my future activities over there...