Wow! What a fantastic end to 2017! 

We hope you had warm memories and great times with your family and friends over the festive season. Wishing all the travelers a safe journey. 

Take a moment or 60 minutes to focus on your year ahead. An annual investment of goal setting can result in amazing results 12 month's later. 

Using some resources like the Goal Workbook PDF here - which is free to use- is an excellent example of how to go about how you want your year to go.... 

Many people who do beekeeping are in the middle stage of life to their later years. This doesn't give us many more times to sit and contemplate our life purpose, our reason for being here and all the experiences we want and places we want to see. That's just going on running this exercise once a year. Some of us might do this action 40 more times - if you do it at all. Some of us might only do it 10 more times. 

How long do you give yourself the time to design your life? If you're a bee, every time she leaves the colony she has purpose. That's at least 365 times a year! 

Be more like a bee this year. Create your purpose. Think about your life. Write it down. Plan. Then take action. Live like you only had 35 more days - EVERY 35 days! Your life will change. Just like a bees. Their average lifespan is 36 days... 

Kind of puts things into perspective... Bee MORE! 

Spraying a new swarm with very fine sugar water is a good way to help them recover and boost their condition after a trek! In this case, a 2:1 ratio of water to sugar can be implemented. So, 2L of water to 1kg of sugar for example. This will help the bees to recover quickly and boost their energy levels in the early days of settling in to their new home. 

Note: One is not required to spray a full 2 liter bottle onto the colony all at one time... Rather to split it into 500ml sprays over 2-3 days where possible. Otherwise see next our alternatives if you aren't able to get to the bees frequently. 

Entrance feeders and external feeding is a good practice to be putting to use over this period to boost new colonies after swarming. By watching them, you can get a good indication of what your bees are gathering and bringing back to the hive. Usually there will be yellow or red pollen coming back with foragers. If no pollen is noticed then it is very likely that forager was collecting nectar and or water for the colony. 

If you can see pollen being brought in then it is very unlikely that they need pollen feeding or a pollen substitute. Remember although bees require pollen in their diet to keep themselves warm and feed the young larvae the important thing is that during this time all energy is usually utilised for brood boosting the colony with high priority on breeding new bees at this time. 

The feeding at this point should really only be focused on new and trekking swarms that have moved into bee hives. 

ALERT:> Ants can become a major risk when feeding sugar water to so make sure not to spill sugar water around or in the hive. USE Nip-It nearby to your hives to keep ants away from your apiary.