Bee populations and DID-IT

Poppe Braam and Gerard van de Braak of De Valksche Hof have been working together for many years. Together they placed the first bee colonies on the Harselaar Barneveld industrial area. At the time, a complete novelty. After the purchase of the office-farm in Voorthuizen, some hives were placed on the premises of DIT-IT in early 2021. Five hives were placed, which could immediately take care of the pollination of the fruit blossoms. They also pollinated the sown buckwheat. Later in the year Gerard added a number of new colonies. Read hives, because these were small hives of "only" a few thousand bees and a young unfertilized queen. The purpose of these small hives is to allow the new queen (of the Buckfast variety) to perform a successful nuptial flight, and then through the eggs she will lay, to grow the hive back into a new production hive for next year. A number of colonies were removed in early August. These hives were already so nicely developed that they contained at least 20,000 bees. They stood temporarily on the Vierhouter heather, where they made delicious heather comb honey. Meanwhile, these hives have been brought back to DIT-IT because the heather has finished flowering. Valksche Bijenhof has harvested the honey, and now they are feeding the bees a little sugar water to make sure they have enough food all winter. There are now 28 colonies of bees at DID-IT to hibernate, and together we are curious to see in what condition we will find them again in the spring!

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