Himmerlandske Bier v. Ivan B. Nielsen

Himmerlandske Bier v. Ivan B. Nielsen Professionel bi- og dronningeavl. Omfattende avl, og salg, af Buckfastbier.
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Professional beekeeping and queen breeding operation.

Extensive breeding, and sale, of Buckfast bees and queens.

Yesterday evening was winter solstice, and with this a new season begins. Quite symbolic, I finished the last washing an...
22/12/2025

Yesterday evening was winter solstice, and with this a new season begins. Quite symbolic, I finished the last washing and cleaning of equipment that same morning. What a nice feeling not to carry old dirt into the new year :-)
It's been quite a warm autumn, and the first part of the winter, and it has actually been too warm for the oxalic acid trickling. But as a perfect timing the temperature literally dropped 5 degrees over night, and we came below +5 degrees which is my threshold for the trickling.
So this morning I went out and did the trickling of the first half of the colonies. 200 colonies in one day is not bad.
One single colony was dead, without any obvious signs of a reason. The rest was from average to very fine in size.
Earlier this season I decide that now it is time for the next step on the ladder in relation to working with Varroa tolerance. This means that the 5 apiaries where the top half of the island mated queens, who where in for assessment and selection this summer are wintered, will not get the oxalic acid treatment. It might cost me a few colonies, but i consider this approach to tolerance as the only viable strategy in beekeeping where time is a constant issue. we simply don't have time for a lot of opening cells to check for fertile mites, which by the way will only be a smaller part of the tolerance.
We simply have to choose strategies we can handle on the long term. For me this is Hygienic behaviour test (freeze killed brood), reduced treatment (no winter treatment) and then a mite drop check in April in the second year of the queens.
The main stock will still be treated in the usual way, but the top notch queens will have to prove if they can handle the problem with a reduced treatment.
Time will show when it will be time for the next step up :-)

Det sure vejr vi har ligenu er ikke værd at gå rundt udenfor i, hvis man har noget at lave indendøre - hvilket der nærme...
25/11/2025

Det sure vejr vi har ligenu er ikke værd at gå rundt udenfor i, hvis man har noget at lave indendøre - hvilket der nærmest altid er....
Engang i sommer så jeg en video af en etiketmaskine som så meget interessant ud. Jeg tænkte omgående "Det er den jeg skal have, så den gamle hjemmelavede kan komme på pension".
Den blev bestilt, men ikke taget i brug. Det skulle der så ændres på nu.
Efter nogle indledende diskussioner med den, om hvordan der skulle justeres på højde etiketten blev placeret i, og lidt andre småting, gik alting strygende.
Det er godt nok dejligt, når de bare sidder der hvor man beder dem om at sidde, og der samtidig kommer en pæn mængde glas over bordet.
Så fik man da vredet hjernen en smule i dag også :-)

Årets honninger har en dejlig stor spredning i farve og smag.
Forsommerhonningen er utrolig hvid i år, men har egentlig overraskende meget smag for så lys en honning. Lidt fast endnu, men som det ofte er med de tidlige honninger, skal de lige have lidt tid til at modne
Sensommerhonningen har mere farve og dybere smag. En blød honning som dog står fint i glasset.
Tunøhonningen er som altid helt sin egen. Vi har lidt til salg herhjemme fra, men øens honningen sælges hovedsageligt på Tunø hvor den kommer fra.
Lynghonningen er mørk og meget dyb i smagen. Blød og geleagtig som en lyng skal være. Den kraftigst smagende honning vi kan præstere, og nok den slags honning man enten elsker eller afskyr - Jeg hør helt klart hjemme i den første gruppe.

Vi sælger vores honning i nogle få butikker, og ellers herhjemme fra. Vi sender dog gerne, hvis du bor for langt væk til at komme forbi og hente honningen selv.

It's been quite a warm autumn until mid last week, and the last task in the practical part of the queen breeding has had...
18/11/2025

It's been quite a warm autumn until mid last week, and the last task in the practical part of the queen breeding has had to wait for colder weather.
After the first production season of the island mated queens, where they are assessed on four general parameters plus honey yield, roughly half of them are culled out after being assessed being below average for the breeding stock.
The queens saved for their second year, and final assessment in April-May next year, are now gathered in a few central apiaries within short driving distance from home base.
This is primarily done to minimise the impact of the environmental factor on the difference in the performance of the queens in the final heat of these gold nuggets.
A secondary, but also important reason, is that the shorter driving distance to the apiaries makes it easier just to pop by for an extra assessment and comparison of the queens as it in general is very small things who ends up with being the difference between the best 2 or 3 queens in a sister group and the rest who are of less interest.
Over the last some years I have realised the importance of using more queens from each sister group, to preserve a wider genetic and after seeing more than once, that it's not always the queen that I would assess as the best in the group, who are passing on the best genetics to the next generation.
It's a whole lot easier to use more than one queen from each line, when the rest of the group is within quarter of an hour from the home base.

So 3 days with a lot of driving and heavy lifting now is well worth the effort, as it makes everything a lot easier when things get busy next year.

A bit of refurnishing in some apiaries can easily be done when the hives are shifted anyway.

Vores søde nabo Marina, som er keramiker, var i dag forbi efter nye forsyninger honning.På den tomme plads i honningskab...
02/11/2025

Vores søde nabo Marina, som er keramiker, var i dag forbi efter nye forsyninger honning.
På den tomme plads i honningskabet havde hun sat to meget smukke krus, hvor hun havde gjort bierne og blomsterne til en del af krusene.
Se så fine de er ❤️☺️

Sæsonen har ikke ligefrem været venlig imod mig, rent arbejdsmæssigt, men honningen har da smilet til os i juli måned.Kl...
24/10/2025

Sæsonen har ikke ligefrem været venlig imod mig, rent arbejdsmæssigt, men honningen har da smilet til os i juli måned.
Kløveren gav ret heftigt, og da vi var temmelig hårdt udfordret på den menneskelige side, blev honningen bare kørt i hus, uden at tænke på slyngning. Det var vigtigere at få bierne indvintret ordentligt.
Nu, med 2 måneders forsinkelse, er jeg så 2 dage fra at være færdig med at slynge. Var godt nok lidt spændt på hvor meget af honningen der var krystalliseret, og dermed havde sat sig i tavlerne. Men det er ikke gået så galt. Ca 5% af rammerne må en tur i skrællevokssmelteren efterfølgende, hvilket ikke på nogen måde ville kunne betale for ekstra hjælp til slyngningen i sæsonen.
Ville dog nødigt skulle klare det med en almindelig skrællemaskine og en radial slynge - honningen bliver noget sejt af at stå så længe 🙂

23/09/2025

The queen breeders are ready for a chat 🙂

Last feeding round of the year. It's a week earlier than normal, as next week will be occupied by the Apimondia in Copen...
18/09/2025

Last feeding round of the year. It's a week earlier than normal, as next week will be occupied by the Apimondia in Copenhagen.

My pump solution is made up of 2 electric Johnson pumps from the marine sector. They run directly on the battery of the cars, and have done so for years, without any problems.
It's very handy, and at the same time silent, as they stop as soon as you close the valve.
So no noise and stress if you have to check a colony that looks suspicious.
For the case: I am feeding 60% syrup, not thick invert syrup.

Hope to see you next week in Copenhagen. I will be around all the days, and will spend quite some time at the Danish Queen Breeders Association stand B54 🐝

It's been a long and exhausting queen season this year, with a lot of troubles, who were hard to control, coming across....
12/08/2025

It's been a long and exhausting queen season this year, with a lot of troubles, who were hard to control, coming across.
I know some customers haven't got the service they could, and would, expect, which I am not very proud of. I will try to catch up with most things here in August, but sometimes things can get a bit out of hand.

Now we have started on a job that can look quite chaotic, but is a lot easier to control - the last harvest and the wintering of the bees -

Plain beekeeping! 🙂🐝

25/06/2025

Apitherapy - or WHERE is the Queen 😉

An afternoon of honey harvest on some of the breeding stock.Nice harvest and only very little swarming despite the somew...
13/06/2025

An afternoon of honey harvest on some of the breeding stock.
Nice harvest and only very little swarming despite the somewhat odd weather pattern, which in many places has triggered a lot of swarms.

Always funny to study the bees marching in after they have been blown out of the honey supers.
The blowing isn't really disturbing the bees very much, and the foragers continue to bring their loads home, even when we are harvesting the honey.

First batch of queens went on two weeks of island holiday today.The weather was nice and the bees looked happy.Let's hop...
03/06/2025

First batch of queens went on two weeks of island holiday today.
The weather was nice and the bees looked happy.
Let's hope the virgins will experience some good romance during their holidays ❤️🐝☺️

Think (and hope) things are starting to roll now.Nice morning and a nice harvest of good cells. They could have been a b...
01/06/2025

Think (and hope) things are starting to roll now.
Nice morning and a nice harvest of good cells.
They could have been a bit more 'waxy' but as there is almost no honey flow at the moment, we are reliant on the bucket, which isn't quite the same as what comes through the flight entrance.
Anyway, 114 in the incubator out of 132 grafted isn't that bad. Let's keep it like that 😉

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