What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Antipodes]

A "before" (just before emergence) and "after" supercedure cell.
Today's photo shows such a perfect "door", and I think I almost got it in foucus.
She's a healthy looking queen. Very steady on the comb. I think she has mated but not yet egg laying. If so and all goes well, it will be my latest successfully mated queen.... that I know of

 

[gregior]

Popped the crownboards to check the progress in the supers on about 10 of mine. Very happy with what I saw,most supers around 80% full (hawthorn and sycamore) and still another 3 days of great weather to go. It's going to be a good spring harvest which is pretty astonishing considering they were all starving 2 weeks ago. Do you think the bees are working extra hard as they were so close to starving?

 

[Swampie]

Today, I had to put on my big girl pants and dig into my pretty 'hot' double brood langstroth, my only hive that I have been setting up for a split next week. With a queen on route, todays objectives were, 1. find that bloody queen, who has been dodging me for the last two months. Mark her. Then shuffle my frames between the two brood boxes, with a bias to more brood and nurses in the split and honey production in the original. After a half hour of riding a veritable bee tornado, success on all counts! Bring on the mail order bride! Feels like summer has finally arived, just in time.

 

[Sutty]

Today, I had to put on my big girl pants and dig into my pretty 'hot' double brood langstroth, my only hive that I have been setting up for a split next week. With a queen on route, todays objectives were, 1. find that bloody queen, who has been dodging me for the last two months. Mark her. Then shuffle my frames between the two brood boxes, with a bias to more brood and nurses in the split and honey production in the original. After a half hour of riding a veritable bee tornado, success on all counts! Bring on the mail order bride! Feels like summer has finally arived, just in time.

An option would have been to shake all the bees from the top brood chamber into the lower one (so the queen is now in there), queen excluder over, second brood chamber over it, then nurse bees will migrate back up to the top box. Next day you can move the top box away as a new hive and introduce the new queen. It removes the need to find the queen.

 

[The Poot]

Inspected two. Each had a full super - from almost empty five days ago. Upper brood boxes backfilled but no swarm cells. As each frame was removed, the bees got a shower of nectar. I don’t think I’ve seen a flow like this before. Amazing.
Each got a second drawn super and I’m hoping they’ll move some of the nectar upstairs.
Hawthorn and sycamore both now in flower, so after nearly starving they’re absolutely filling their boots!

 

[The Poot]

An option would have been to shake all the bees from the top brood chamber into the lower one (so the queen is now in there), queen excluder over, second brood chamber over it, then nurse bees will migrate back up to the top box. Next day you can move the top box away as a new hive and introduce the new queen. It removes the need to find the queen.

That’s a good tip. Thanks.

 

[Swampie]

An option would have been to shake all the bees from the top brood chamber into the lower one (so the queen is now in there), queen excluder over, second brood chamber over it, then nurse bees will migrate back up to the top box. Next day you can move the top box away as a new hive and introduce the new queen. It removes the need to find the queen.

Yeah. This was my plan B and I actually went out there with an excluder, ready. But as a relatively new beek, the prospect of shaking out a full langstroth deep of moody 'local' bees was not high on my wishlist. I was pretty relieved to find that queen (and worth mentioning that she was a big beautiful curvy queen too). My plan C was just to do a walk-away split and see which half started building emergency cells. But then I'd maybe end up with the old queen in the split, when I really wanted her with the foragers. So I could have the new queen with the nurse bees. All in all, I'm very chuffed. I've managed only a false swarm split last year (in a pinch with an overflowing hive and a bunch of swarm cells). So to do a fully planned and properly executed pro-active manipulation has left me chuffed. Although with the hard yards won, I still need to get the ball over the line, this coming week.

 

[mattjames74]

Lots of activity today due to the great weather we are currently having. Over 2kg a day so far! Hopefully this continues.

 

[Goran]

It is said, the smarter ones give up. I didn't, so bees were smarter this time.. But gave me heck of a lifting ( heavy supers).. It was on the edge to take flight to nearest branch..

 

[rolande]

Yesterday... two buses to hand therapy clinic followed be a bus out into the countryside and just short of a ten mile circuitous walk to check on two apiaries that I haven't seen since messing my hand up. Got to admit I did start to think that there "must be easier ways...." then I got to the first site and saw the bees flying and it all seemed worth the effort. Nothing' of mine has swarmed although a couple of nice looking swarms have set up in empty hives.

Hive manipulation with one hand and a forearm is slow but doable.

Edit: and picked up a copy of Maeterlinck's Life of the white ant while waiting for my appointment. All told, a pretty good day.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Hive manipulation with one hand and a forearm is slow but doable.

Not for long I hope.
Hope you’re better soon

 

[rolande]

Not for long I hope.
Hope you’re better soon

Thank you, I doubt I'll be back to full dexterity and strength before the end of the season, maybe never, that's not really my plan but it's got to be kept in mind to avoid a meltdown if I don't retrieve full use.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thank you, I doubt I'll be back to full dexterity and strength before the end of the season, maybe never, that's not really my plan but it's got to be kept in mind to avoid a meltdown if I don't retrieve full use.

Well do your exercises and do what you’re told. I did and my consultant told me that’s what got me through. Amazing the number of folk who don’t because it’s hard

 

[Sutty]

I had a thumb tendon I had severed repaired last October. Despite being "in the business" I was quite taken aback by quite how stiff it was when eventually taken out of the splint. It felt like it would never move properly again! The exercises given by the hand therapist, and a lot of massage, have me back to full function now

 

[Garry R]

The human body is an amazing piece of kit. I made a right mess of my left thumb on a table saw a couple of years ago Would show a photo but not for the faint hearted! The front of it above and just on the top joint was gone and then it got infected. A few tests of swabs got the right antibioitic and then the healing got going. What intrigues me is that it healed back but how does the body know when to stop growing , look normal and not end up with a grotesque malformed digit. Just left with it a bit numb but full use. Nips a bit in cold weather. I was lucky.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

why?

Emyr, you asked that in reply to the statement that a poster didn't like seeing ants around their hives. It was just the 'Why' I needed. Since then I've given up tapping crown boards on the ground to shake off the ants and their eggs. And feeling quite pleased with myself to boot.

So it came as a bit of a disappointment yesterday when a friend pointed to a study which shows that ants carry and replicate CBPV. What to do?

My bees have had chronic bee outbreaks in two of the last three years and that was during my shaking ants to the ground days. A bit of science adds to one's perspective, but I think I'll stick with my live and let live approach to the ants for a while longer.

 

[Sutty]

Emyr, you asked that in reply to the statement that a poster didn't like seeing ants around their hives. It was just the 'Why' I needed. Since then I've given up tapping crown boards on the ground to shake off the ants and their eggs. And feeling quite pleased with myself to boot.

So it came as a bit of a disappointment yesterday when a friend pointed to a study which shows that ants carry and replicate CBPV. What to do?

My bees have had chronic bee outbreaks in two of the last three years and that was during my shaking ants to the ground days. A bit of science adds to one's perspective, but I think I'll stick with my live and let live approach to the ants for a while longer.

If you use a hive stand on legs you could put the legs in small tubs of oil (if protected from rain) to stop ants.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

If you use a hive stand on legs you could put the legs in small tubs of oil (if protected from rain) to stop ants.

Thanks for the tip but being realistic, it ain't going to happen. The only time I've tried to isolate a site from ants was a holiday house in my one trip to the sun (Majorca). It did work, spraying a line round the outside of the whole house.

 

[gregior]

A split i made 2 weeks ago swarmed today,my fault as i was planning on doing a bailey on it so had a fresh brood box on top of them then they made swarm preps so I used that fresh partly drawn box for the Q+ part but failed to check for eggs . Turns out it had 4 frames of eggs so that's why i'm guessing they still decided to swarm. About 15feet off the groung just out of reach (as usual) got a nuc box with a frame of brood below swarm and trying to knock them onto the ground but they keep flying back.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Emyr, you asked that in reply to the statement that a poster didn't like seeing ants around their hives. It was just the 'Why' I needed. Since then I've given up tapping crown boards on the ground to shake off the ants and their eggs. And feeling quite pleased with myself to boot.

So it came as a bit of a disappointment yesterday when a friend pointed to a study which shows that ants carry and replicate CBPV. What to do?

My bees have had chronic bee outbreaks in two of the last three years and that was during my shaking ants to the ground days. A bit of science adds to one's perspective, but I think I'll stick with my live and let live approach to the ants for a while longer.

May, possible, could - no real evidence to prove their theories then.
the only apiaries I have experienced CBPV have no ants
The apiaries where I have loads of ants have yet to have a case of CBPV
maybe possibly ants could keep the apiaries CBPV free