# General beekeeping > Everything and anything >  Heather weather

## greengumbo

Morning all.

Quite a few commercial guys have started to migrate hives to the heather over the past few weeks. Being pretty inexperienced I take my cue from them  :Smile:  What are your plans this year ?

I am going to move a handful this weekend and scout out my main sites for flowering Bell but i'm in two minds as I have an unbelievable flow of clover at the moment with supers emptied off OSR now full again. 

Some season so far ! Queen matings excellent as well. Too many hives now !

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## fatshark

I'm apparently moving some hives to Aberdeenshire tomorrow  :Wink:

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## Adam

No heather for me.  I saw a huge Lime tree absolutely humming with bees this weekend. And blackberry is out so colonies are busy. And I will be away for a week so I am not sure what I will find when I get back!

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## mbc

> Morning all.
> 
> Quite a few commercial guys have started to migrate hives to the heather over the past few weeks. Being pretty inexperienced I take my cue from them  What are your plans this year ?
> 
> I am going to move a handful this weekend and scout out my main sites for flowering Bell but i'm in two minds as I have an unbelievable flow of clover at the moment with supers emptied off OSR now full again. 
> 
> Some season so far ! Queen matings excellent as well. Too many hives now !


One of the many unwritten rules is not to move bees off a flow, bloody awkward to move heavy hives for one thing and swamping bees with fresh nectar being jiggled about in transit can't be good either.

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## Calluna4u

> One of the many unwritten rules is not to move bees off a flow, bloody awkward to move heavy hives for one thing and swamping bees with fresh nectar being jiggled about in transit can't be good either.


It can be lethal. Freshly drawn comb on foundation in hot weather....deadly to move. Only bees we are moving right now are those we can effectively screen.

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## Bridget

> Morning all.
> 
> Quite a few commercial guys have started to migrate hives to the heather over the past few weeks. Being pretty inexperienced I take my cue from them  What are your plans this year ?
> 
> I am going to move a handful this weekend and scout out my main sites for flowering Bell but i'm in two minds as I have an unbelievable flow of clover at the moment with supers emptied off OSR now full again. 
> 
> Some season so far ! Queen matings excellent as well. Too many hives now !


Some bell out here but ling not looking that great . dry and some of it browner than is normal for this time of year.  Reckon it needs rain.


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## Jambo

Deeside bell was looking nice and purple driving back to Aberdeen-ish from Murray's on Saturday.

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## Thymallus

> but ling not looking that great . dry and some of it browner than is normal for this time of year.  Reckon it needs rain.


Worried about it ourselves for the North Yorks moors. We have previously had 2 great seasons....damp wet June/July. Rain dances being organised.
But currently the bees are on fire, never seen so much honey being piled in...but then we have everything out at once, including Rose Bay Willow herb, which in this region is an August flower....Suspect when this flow ends that will be it.

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## mbc

> But currently the bees are on fire, never seen so much honey being piled in...but then we have everything out at once,


Same, I'm exhausted from evening's of extracting to cycle through batches of supers to keep some space on the hives, I'm even considering plonking a load of old empty brood boxes consigned to be burnt back on the hives and dealing with the wild comb later, I'm not complaining when the weight of work is from a glut of honey.

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## Jambo

Camped overnight close to Glenshee, the bell looks great and the ling still looks green unlike a lot of the grass! A spit of rain this morning but nothing that would make a difference.

Exchanged waves with Murray or one of his crews with a load of Smiths close to Braemar while taking down our tent this morning, so he's on the move!

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## Jambo

It is raining in the hills - a wee bit - this site has lots of data: http://apps.sepa.org.uk/rainfall

Although to be useful you'd also need to know how much rain is enough - I have no idea!

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## greengumbo

Cheers !

Our site actually looked okay. The bell heather looks great this year and the ling is still a while off I think. I only moved four hives in the end - mainly as I was going for a look anyway and secondly as the rest are crammed with clover honey and the hives are stupidly big. Third extraction of the year for some hives coming up then they can all go and I can breathe a sigh of relief for 6 weeks  :Smile:

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## Feckless Drone

Pleased to see a bit more rain today - I've been walking in the hills and its been bone dry. I put a couple of hives on a bell site, however I've likely missed it. A lot of the bell on that site actually passed the best (Angus glens so will be south of you GG). I have seen ling that looks pretty well on so plan to move other hives end of next week once all the uniting is done.

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## Thymallus

Worth remembering that heather moors are really large boggy water sinks. It may be dry on top but underneath there is still a lot of water. I'm looking forward to seeing what the crop is like this year as it will provide a lot of info on what is required (or not) for a good heather crop. Last two years we have had very wet June's and July's and exceptionally good weather in August which has given bumper crops. 
Is it the foraging weather? Or the amount of rain in June/July?
Seeing the staggering amounts of honey being brought in with our long extended hot dry conditions my money is on the weather.

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## greengumbo

Update:

Moved all my hives up mid July. Checked last week and its a mixed bag but not looking like a great year. Ling still going but lots of brown flowers already. I will leave it a bit longer but not optimistic. How are others doing ?

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## Thymallus

North Yorks Moors western side is producing lots of nectar. Most hives have filled 3 or four supers  (not fully capped) and may need more.  Although the recent rain and cooler weather may slow them down a bit. 
Intriguingly  it's a bit checkerboard in places. Full out in some areas and just coming out in others. It may (or may not) be an extended season. Possibly due to whether the heather was over underlying deep wet "peat" or smaller distance to sub rock.
But it's not exceptional, just the norm for this area.

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## Calluna4u

> North Yorks Moors western side is producing lots of nectar. Most hives have filled 3 or four supers  (not fully capped) and may need more.  Although the recent rain and cooler weather may slow them down a bit. 
> Intriguingly  it's a bit checkerboard in places. Full out in some areas and just coming out in others. It may (or may not) be an extended season. Possibly due to whether the heather was over underlying deep wet "peat" or smaller distance to sub rock.
> But it's not exceptional, just the norm for this area.


You are very very lucky, but then Yoprkshire has been 5C or more warmer than our areas over the last fortnight. Have some Yorks. friends reporting a very poor heather harvest, but then they left the bees gathering blossom and missed the first fortnight of the heather.

Bees on the moors in July have done well...some places VERY well. One or two sites will average 50Kg. 25Kg more normally. Bell yielded in only about half of the normal areas, but the ling started by mid July and helped a lot.

Bees put up in August have done very little indeed, the weather is shot, and the moors now mostly brown. Its pretty well over in most of our areas. About 20% of our apiaries have very little indeed, which will drag the overall average on heather well down from 25Kg. (Long term (35yr ave.) is 21.4...so not going to be a BAD heather year). The bees have known this for a long time and the rate of laying even in nucs tailed off around 3 weeks back and they are getting very dour about further expansion.

Drones are mostly out, wasps are savaging the mating boxes and smaller nucs, balsam doing zilch apart from a few white bees coming in. Paying for the big heat earlier. Hurts the later flowers.

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## Thymallus

> . Have some Yorks. friends reporting a very poor heather harvest, but then they left the bees gathering blossom and missed the first fortnight of the heather.


Many round here decided it wasn't worth taking their bees to the heather because of the drought. All were predicting doom and gloom. 
Currently all is still looking good on the heather with the bees working well.
But our borage harvest was a disaster. The plants where weedy and limp with brown leaves. Even the rainfall they did get was too little and too late. Last few years we seem to average around 34kg/hive...down to 7kg this year....and not sure how pure it is until I check the pollen content. The honey looks darker than usual. 
Will be interesting to see how these borage hives fare now, as we took a few to the heather on the 8th of August with empty supers.

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## Bridget

Heee in the Highlands boxes all bursting with bees and looking v busy when weather allows but very little heather coming in. Luckily had some blossom honey earlier.  So looking poor for us but good for strong colonies going into winter.  More than doubled our colonies what with splits some of which still swarmed later.  Now have one to combine I think and supers off next weekend. 


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## Calluna4u

Well I got a surprise at Dinnet today...was up on a muchroom foray with one of my daughters and realised the heather is in far better condition than it was two weeks ago. This was true of several spots. 

Yes ll was brown two weeks ago but all the plants that just stopped developing because of the drought earlier are now in flower. I would say it has 10 days to 2 weeks still in it there.....I suspect its just a Deeside thing but have Italian visitors tomorrow for 3 days and on Tuesday we are going to Glenfeshie.

Big thing was that hives that had very little last time I looked (which WAS in late July) now have some serious honey. but the 5 sites I checked will now have averages varying from about 23 to 38Kg...actually pretty decent.  (Note to those who might think this not much....it includes EVERY colony in the group, even the young singles just up there to earn their winter keep.) There was some residual smell and light fanning from whatever they did on Saturday.

So....maybe NOT totally over yet. Even a couple of kilos more adds up to quite a sum.

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## Feckless Drone

> Note to those who might think this not much....


I'd be delighted with 10 Kg per colony harvested heather honey never mind what you are getting C4U. I had a miserable morning yesterday in the Angus glens - taking supers off and getting the bees setup for a trip back home. My crop this year is going to be pretty poor and I think this is to do more with colony strength (and timing for bees of the right age) rather than the heather. I say this on the basis of a couple of colonies doing OK. Also, a predilection for getting sections not helping me. It was a real surprise to see the second flush of flowering you were describing - in places the heather, especially the bell, looks better than it did a couple of weeks ago. 

BTW - the Porter's worked almost perfectly this year - helped by a couple of very cold nights.

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## Bridget

Is there such a thing as Buddlia (sp) honey? Bees all over it and ignoring most other stuff


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## Jambo

It is a good nectar producer but according to Kirk and Howes our bees' tongues are too short for it. Mine ignore it most of the time.

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## greengumbo

> It is a good nectar producer but according to Kirk and Howes our bees' tongues are too short for it. Mine ignore it most of the time.


They love the orange ball variety ! Like jambo says the normal purple ones are too deep for honeybees.

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## Calluna4u

> I'd be delighted with 10 Kg per colony harvested heather honey never mind what you are getting C4U. I had a miserable morning yesterday in the Angus glens - taking supers off and getting the bees setup for a trip back home. My crop this year is going to be pretty poor and I think this is to do more with colony strength (and timing for bees of the right age) rather than the heather. I say this on the basis of a couple of colonies doing OK. Also, a predilection for getting sections not helping me. It was a real surprise to see the second flush of flowering you were describing - in places the heather, especially the bell, looks better than it did a couple of weeks ago. 
> 
> BTW - the Porter's worked almost perfectly this year - helped by a couple of very cold nights.


What date did you go up?

Have our best yields in Glenesk and Glengairn...poorest will be the later bees up the A9 north of Dalwhinnie or any bees placed in Angus after 1st August.

However...the picture is very mixed even in the August bees. I said we were going to Glenfeshie and those bees (6 sites, many are from our own queen unit) have somehow packed in (estimated) 18 to 20Kg average.

Bees placed near Dalwhinnie in the same week have practically zero...well not zero but a pretty paltry crop.

However there is still heather flower in all areas up there from late flowering clumps, so the weather over the next few days might give a bit more....the colonies are of better bee power than normal for the end of August (possibly due to inactivity not burning them out) so they have a chance. It was pretty cold on the western moors Tues/Wed  so there was very little bee flight, but my guy working in Deeside west of Ballater reported good flight there, a lot of pollen, but no appreciable nectar.

Overall impression thus is that some areas are outstanding, others average, and a significant minority very poor. Therefore thinking that, all lumped together it will be somewhat above average heather but not bumper. Pretty content with that given all the problems we faced this year.

Will start boarding some of the earliest finishing areas (east Deeside I think) at the end of next week.

and...FWIW....and now rather out of date...we did side by side testing on various levels of crop from different types of supering at the heather back in the 80's. Sections results were only around 20% of the harvest of the best system (for weight of harvest) which was drawn comb deeps. A fairly predictable hierarchy of crop.....Drawn deeps best, then drawn shallows, foundation deeps, foundation shallows, thin super shallows (significant difference from using standard weight foundation), and lagging far behind were starter strips and sections.

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## Feckless Drone

[QUOTE=Calluna4u;39852]What date did you go up?

Colonies sent for the bell on 8th July (Lethnot), then for ling went up 2 weeks later to a different site (Prosen). I noted your survey previously - and I know its not efficient - but I love sections! Nevertheless, its a poor return so I will revise the strategy for next year, maybe try some deeps but my shoulder might not be capable for that.

Putting some bell into the Dundee Flower and Food Festival competition this year, but it is maybe a bit paler than the judges would like. The taste is fantastic - far and away the best and most costly honey I've ever produced.

And while I am here - anyone at the DFFF this weekend - please pop over to the ESBA stand and introduce yourself.

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## Bridget

So final taking off of the honey today.  Absolutely no heather honey to be seen in any of the hives.  This was pretty much as I had expected as we had not seen the usual frantic heather blossom excitement in August.  Thats not to say the bees were not busy, they were always busy, getting my hopes up!
Only the overwintered hives had enough remaining blossom stores to remove, all the swarms and splits had obviously had enough of a flow to draw the foundation in the brood and supers but little light in the way of stores now. 


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## Feckless Drone

Busy getting bees down from the Angus glens this weekend, with a real nip in the air and some bell heather still in flower. I am always looking out for blaeberry bumble bees when up the hills since I've never seen one. At the weekend I saw a wonderful big dark bee, male gypsy cuckoo bumble bee right beside a hive. New to me, but I see it is considered common in the north of the UK. The search for the blaeberry continues.

Anyway, colonies are coming back still strong, no drones seen, with stores in the brood box, and now with apivar strips in place and a block of fondant overhead. The last sweaty day of beekeeping for 2018. A bit of uncapped heather honey in the supers put on to provide space a couple of weeks ago and I'll give them that in the spring. Next job is to clean up the hardware and deal with the frames and wax and plan for next season. Roll on 2019.

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## Thymallus

Yup just got all mine back from North Yorks Moors. Yield down this year, mainly because the flow finished very abruptly mid-August.  Most unusual, most years it slows down and peters out early Sept. But hey, it's been an unusual year.
Finished extracting it, a few days of my life I won't get back. I love heather honey but hate extracting it. 
That's it now for extraction. All kit clean and stored.
Overall a great year, particularly the June/July period when I struggled to keep up with the honey monsters.
Now the interesting question of how to sell all that honey and what bit of fancy kit to spend the proceedings on.

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## greengumbo

All my hives came down from the hills on saturday / sunday. Was relieved to see them intact. 

Not a great crop. Will be stripping some brood boxes to get some honey, feeding them all ~12 litres invert and treating next few weeks. Best tip I ever got was from Murray to rapid feed without the clear plastic insert and float hay / straw on top of syrup instead. They blitz it down in no time  :Smile:

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## Jambo

> Best tip I ever got was from Murray to rapid feed without the clear plastic insert and float hay / straw on top of syrup instead. They blitz it down in no time


Interesting - a couple of mine seem to need more weight but are a bit reluctant to take it down, will give that a go.

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## greengumbo

> Interesting - a couple of mine seem to need more weight but are a bit reluctant to take it down, will give that a go.


Good luck jambo. I fed a bunch last thursday in the rain and checked yesterday to find they had taken all 12 litres and no drowned bees  :Smile:

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## Jambo

> Good luck jambo. I fed a bunch last thursday in the rain and checked yesterday to find they had taken all 12 litres and no drowned bees


Encouraging!  Struggling to get my head around why it works. 

 RE drowned bees it's a bit odd that I seem to have either hives with zero drownings or quite a few, never seems to be one or two. They're also the ones that don't take the syrup quickly.  A numpty gene?

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## Jambo

Any predictions for this year?  Slow day at work so updated my rainfall charts  :Cool: 

This shows May + June rainfall for all years 2009 to 2019 recorded by SEPA.  Surprisingly Inverurie is not considerably wetter than most other years, last year was the outlier.   However in the Cairngorms (Ballater) there has been 80mm MORE rain than this period in any year in the last ten.

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## Bridget

Here in the Highlands still struggling with the weather.  Just stopped feeding after all that rain in May and June.  Feel sorry for the bees trying to get out and forage.  I read somewhere needs to be 15 degrees for nectar - is that true? If so no wonder they have been struggling.  Certainly no blossom honey this year but our main crop is heather.  Some bell heather out but we dont have much.  The other heather looks healthy in the sheltered woods but some of the moor not looking great yet.  


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