Enska

The local weather station 2km away from they hives

Bee Flowers in Iceland

24/9 08

I have started a new webpage www.byflugur.is (the name of bees in Icelandic) an soon I will write in English there

25/8

I am in great problem to write on the home page as frontpage dos not works not with Vista. I will make a new home page soon

11/7

We bought 39 hives in Norway and transported them to Iceland whit ferry in the beginning of June, 24 of them survived (big mistakes was don on the transport) only 4 colonies survived from last year . So now we got 28 colonies living in Iceland. In May an June the weather has been warm and beneficial fore the bees an lot of honey has been stored in the hives which we will harvest son.

24/3 08

seen on this pict. of medial wind speed fore this winter

This is short abbreviation of an article published in Swedish magazine GADDEN

The winter 06-07 was as usual with lot of windy days and medial temp. around 0°C.

The cleansing flight was in April but May was the coldest of recent years. That killed some colonies. In June and July the weather got warmest of recent years but also the driest . The hives lacked pollen and did not enlarge as expected despite feeding with sugar water and soya pollen. We got queens from Sweden but we were unable to divide all the hives so we got 13 hives and all with new queens and all good-natured. The colonies doesn't enlarge as I was used to in Sweden likely because of the low medial temperature of the Icelandic summer.

We gat about 2k kg of honey from the hives we harvested.

24/7

At last the weather was good in June (warmest June the last 30 years) and the first half of July warm as well. We have now only 9 living colonies in Iceland but we are getting new queens from Sweden next week and are gone divide as many as possible.

25/5

The weather is still colder and no sight for more warm

17 may

The weather has been cold all may there are 15 living colonies so far

April 07

The weather this winter has been as normal. We have somewhere between 12 and 16 colonies living.

Her is the medium temperature/year for Reykjavik the last years

And fore 2 years

5 okt 06

This September has been the warmest fore the last 50 years and the medium temperature 3°C higher than normal. The bees has been collecting small quantities of pollen and nectar all that time. We owerwinter 21 hive ad I got totally 50 kg honey and over 50% from 1 hive and the rest from 3 small and 2 divides and I inwinter 4 strong colonies.

24 August

This summer has been there coldest and rainiest for many years and the honey harvest is minimal. We got new queens from Sweden and we are now rid of the killer bees we bought from Norway last year. We will owerwinter the hives as last year by shelter from wind and cold. There are approximately twenty hives in Iceland now and hopefully these methods prove successful this coming winter.

5 July

Now it has rained more than a month and the weather has been comparatively cold. We have feeded the colonies but they haven't grown much even despite that. The forecast is to good the next days 8 June 06

I was in Hveragerði today to shop me some plants at a nursery, and fancy this; in some flowers was batch of bees. Dialed natural a beekeeping college in an exhilaration rush and thought that they must come from a swarm last year but one of the hives from last year was alive and the bees expectable from there.

the weather has been rainy and cold, anyhow the bees have foraged home pollen and nectar at all occasions. We hope fore better season shortly.

27 may

There are about 20 colonies witch have survived the winter -the best so fare. We have started feeding them and hop for a god summer

30 April

The temp. went up to 12°C two days ago so the bees were out that day most of the hives have survived out of 11 but I haven't opened non of them yet

18 April 06

We hade 10°C in the beginning of the month but it rained so only some bees did fly out. Dandelion and Colt's-foot has started to bloom.

December 05

The weather the last weeks has been as usual winters, raining and snowing in between. Temperature has been between -9,3°C and +4°C but wind has bee moderate. As I have herd most of the beekeepers have put their hives in some kind of shelter for the wind, you can see mine her . I have 11 hives inside the cot who is insulated whit rock wool. The temperature just now (7.des 14:00); outside 3.3°C inside the cot 4,6°C and in 3 hives at the top of the cluster 10.0° , 10,2°and 19,8°. It seems like the colder outside the bigger difference is inside the cot and usually 3-4°C difference.

October 05

Sorry for no writings the last months.

The summer was not the best one for beekeeping and the weather from the second week in august was the worst the last 180 years (specially September -coldest) we usually have bees flying until the beginning of October and the last week (2/10) small numbers of bees have been collecting pollen in temp of 8 °C. The requeening went well in most of the hives bout some were lost an some died of unknown reason. Most of them have mated with some yellow (Ligustica ?) drones so the color is mixed and the stock we got from Sweden is not clean . The honey harvest is about 110 kg from approximately. 10 hives and the colonies have taken 15-20 kg of sugar each.

Sept 05

NOVA Apiculture report

Due date: 15 September 2005

http://www.nova-university.org/projrep/Apiculture_44.DOC

Introduction to topic Heikki Hokkanen
- NOVA as an organization
- Current situation of apiculture teaching at NOVA member institutes
- Current state of planning for NOVA Apiculture

Heikki Hokkanen introduced the concept of NOVA Apiculture MSc/PhD-Project and explained the NOVA support structure with the help of the NOVA website, using as an example the already established NOVA Network for Urban Forestry and Urban Greening. The teaching situation of apiculture at the Member Universities, and the state of the planning for NOVA Apiculture was explained and discussed, based on previous documents distributed at the meting. It was emphasized that formally, only persons associated with one of the NOVA Member Institutions can participate in the Network. A brief note was also made of the beekeeping situation in Iceland, based on the internet site of Egill Rafn Sigurgeirsson [ http://frontpage.simnet.is/egillrs/a_ensku_.htm ], chairman of BÝ [The Icelandic Bee Association]. There are attempts to introduce beekeeping to Iceland, and the main problem appears to be excessive winter mortality of the colonies. This problem, however, might be overcome with proper techniques of overwintering the colonies under controlled environment conditions. It was decided to make contact with our Icelandic colleague, Dr. Gudmundur Halldorson, to find out more about possibilities to incorporate Iceland into the Network

July 05

14/7 Now the queens have arrived 37 of them and we have made new hives out of the old ones an are gong to give these the new queens.

Jun 05

All the hives survived and the 1.super is on, eggs and larva are in both suppers. They all got ether dry sugar or reserves from earlier hives we had. We are waiting for new queens (crainer) from Sweden these we gat are profusely aggressive and make a lot of swarm cells.

There is about 10-20 kg of honey in the combs and they have got their 3 super on.

May 05

I bought 30 hives in Norway and transported them to Iceland whit ferry 10/5 all survived and the 2 colonies from last year did to. So now we got 32 colonies living in Iceland.

The story of beekeeping in Iceland (Ísland - Ís =Ás = god = land of god)

During the years1936 and 1938, there were some bees imported from Norway. They gave about 10 kg of honey but didn’t survive the winters.

In 1951 a lady from Austria, Mrs. Urbancic, imported bees from Scotland and in 1952 and 1953 from Norway. She kept bees in Reykjavik for several years. In 1960 she was ordered to remove (kill) the bees, because of objection from her neighbors. In 1975 Mr. Möller imported hives 2 years in a row but they didn’t survive the winters.

In August 1998 I imported 5 hives (carnica bees) from Sweden, after have kept bees there for 10 years. 2 hives died on the flight. That year 2 hives gave 25 kg of honey but 1 hive didn’t survive the winter. The 2 hives grew big during the summer of 1999, but I didn’t take any honey from them that year because I was sailing in the Virgin Islands for 4 months that summer.

I gave these hives 2 kg of lightly fermented honey in September, but that killed them (?) late in the spring of 2000.

In July 2000 we (the Icelandic Bee Association = Bý), imported packets of bees (Elgon) from Sweden, but these didn’t grow big enough to survive the winter. Once again we tried to import bees in 2001, from Norway this time, and by ferry. They arrived on the 26th of July. Of 18 hives, 16 survived the trip (8 of them gave 70 kg honey). These bees (A.m.mellifera) were exceptionally aggressive (see picture at right) and only 2 of them survived the winter, even though these hives were spread around the country. The 2 that survived were placed on the south shore with just a little shelter from open wind and the Atlantic ocean.

We were trying to buy bees from Sweden early in the summer of 2002, but no one was able to sell us any. The 2 remaining hives showed more aggressiveness than ever and had to be moved from their location to my garden on the outskirts of Reykjavik. Because of lack of time and rainy weather that autumn, we didn’t take any honey from the hives. Only 1 hive survived the winter of 2003 and it is still active (gave 13 kg honey in august). We got new queens (mellifera) from Sweden in the middle of September and now it is just to wait and see if the bees accept them.

NEWS FROM ICELAND

20-30 Beehives to be Imported
8/9/2002
Members of the Bee Farmer’s Association, BÝ, have for the past three years been attempting to farm bees around Iceland. The honey now produced is mostly used by the farmers themselves, although some is sold.

Egill Rafn Sigurgeirsson, chairman of BÝ, says in an interview with daily ‘Morgunbladid’ that around 70 kg of honey was produced from eight hives. The association is planning to import 20-30 hives next June, which should be able to produce around 30-50 kg of honey each. The BÝ Association hopes that by importing such a large number of hives, the bees will be numerous enough to survive the Icelandic winter.

According to Egill, only two of the 16 hives, which were imported last year, are still active. They are both in Egil’s garden in Kópavogur (capitol area). Egill says that the bees leave his neighbors totally in peace. “They don’t fly around people or disturb them, they just fly to the nearest flower and home again,” says Egill.

I went to Sweden in May 2003 to buy about 30 hives, but the winter had been extremely cold and many beekeepers had lost all their hives so I just got 4 hives (carnica), to transport back home. 1 hive died on the flight and 1 queen died in one of the hives. At the moment (21/9 03), I have 3 hives which gave 80 kg honey, mostly from 1 hive, and we hope to buy some 30 hives from Sweden next spring.

We have always given the hives about 20 kg of sugar for the winter.

16/2 04 I have found out that 2 of the hives have died the 3 still lives but I don't now the size of it. It was dead in the end of April.

June 04, we still got 1 hive alive, will now try to make 3 hives out of it by buying 2 queens from Sweden, import from Norway was stopped because of the great risk it would bring to the passengers on board the ferry who sails from Bergen to Iceland ????.

We got three inseminated queen's (a. mellifera mellifera ) from Sweden in the beginning of august. We divided the mother hive to four hives but it t had started developing some queen cells witch we took away. It showed up that 1 of the hives had young queen but se didn't mate. We put these two hives together but the queen seems to be unfertile . The problem in Iceland seems to be the wind in the winter not the cold, the mean temperature for Reykjavik in January is 0 degrees C.

So now we have two hives for the winter we hope they will survive until next spring. We will import some hives from Norway. Because of the Varroa and other infectious disease in bees we have to be careful in importing these

Now we are preparing buying hives from Norway and then transport them on ferry to Iceland in May. This is our last chance to get these without Varroa because the mite spread quickly in Scandinavia as dose the trachea mite. We are still opportunist that bees can over winter in our country, its matter of the proper conditions too over winter them. Probably have to keep them indoor or as the hives that have survived the winter in good shelters I have no knowledge the two hives that lived in September.