Ballycroy National Park

Yesterday I took Maureen and Monika, two friends from the OWLs who are staying in the Folly, for a visit to Ballycroy, the Ballycroy National Park and Visitors Center. There I asked the staff if they were thinking about getting bees. No, but they will have a talk the first half of August by a beekeeper from Westport. When we came back I saw that Timothy the beekeeper had put another storey on one of the hives. A sign that things are going well with the Polranny Pirate Bees! I asked Timothy and he answered this: ‘The bees seem to be growing well. They also have adequate stores which is encouraging as this time of the year is usually an issue. I think clover might be a bit early and sycamore which is all but finished certainly was late. The Visitor Centre is a nice spot. It’s probably Henry Horkan who’ll give the talk. Well worth a listen if you are interested he is quite knowledgeable.’

The honey box that tops up the hive

In spite of Timothy the beekeeper’s dire predictions it was time to put a second storey on the one and the honey box on the other hive. How to get the worker bees to put the honey where you want it? It had puzzled me since starting this blog. The solution is quite simple really. A plastic screen is put between the third and second storey. The holes in the screen are big enough for the worker bees to creep through but too small for the drones and the Queen. That way the home staying workers oblivious of everything except the task at hand to continue storing supplies, can access the top floor. The drones however cannot avail themselves of those honey stores and the queen cannot lay eggs on the frames.

The weight of the stores

Timothy the beekeeper is detecting a problem in his hives: the feed stores are low. He checked the stores by weighting the frames in his hands. In Polranny they seem alright for the time being, but it might come to pass here too. I quote freely from his recent entry on Facebook Clew Bay Honey: ‘Most years have a gap in nectar producing plants in the summer. This is called by beekeepers in Ireland "the June gap". Normally bees store enough spring honey to get them over this gap and into the main honey flow. This year it is very possible that I shall have to feed the hives instead. This leads to an interesting problem: making sure there is no feed ending up in the honey that is harvested in August. If I feed too much I risk mixing and if I feed to little the hive dies… ‘ But today the sun broke through the clouds and the bees are in a feeding frenzy. I’m already stung when I went to spy on them. Photo Karin Daan