Jarred some of the honey I extracted. Ordered some personalised labels from Thornes.
Inspected all colonies and found laying queens in both AS hives plus no 7 is stronger. Foraging has slowed with the downturn in the weather conditions so put 1:1 feed onto the new colonies and those others which were low on stores.
Spent an hour at the association apiary Saturday and oversaw this years beginners inspecting their hives. Pleased to see the colony I sold to one as a nuc is looking healthy and settling into a national brood box with bias in a good pattern. The other beginners colonies are not so encouraging, one is slow to expand and another has a high proportion of drone comb. I'm concerned that one needs action and will return next week...
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The local OSR yielded 300lb off 8 hives that were in the right place at the right time. There's a further 15 supers full now but with with weather I will leave them until mid July and hopefully we get some better weather and the main flownstarts.
On the 5 in WBcs I have elsewhere they've had a poor start - one queen less and then a drone layer, 3 making huge attempts to swarm and another that almost bit got it in time. The last one had a fine super of Spring wildflower honey on it that once extracted was some of the finest I've ever tasted. Bloody expensive honey too seeing as it cost the site owner £30,000 to sow a wildflower meadow 2 years ago
It does make me think though that the beekeepers in the 18th century who had access to...
Following my recent surgical procedure I enlisted help from a fellow BABKA member to accompany me in going through the hives. I felt it likely there would be heavy supers to lift and this proved to be true. Some were not ripe but three were full and capped so we shook the bees off each frame and carried those to a barrow for removal to be extracted.
No 3 hive appears to have become queenless as there were no eggs or larvae and the marked queen not seen. However no7 which was weak is increasing steadily. I will monitor these two and try a test frame in no3 with a view to a possible unite.
Checked on 21 colonies in between a shower or two and as storms threatened.
Popped a newly hatched Virgin into a nuc that has done little apart from fail to raise a queen, in a cage just in case. Helped another into the nuc she was hatching from and cut out 2 later stage QCs.
So that's 6 nucs mated and laying, 1 waiting to be mated, 1 hoping to be accepted and mated, and 2 small swarms building up well.
The full colonies are still pulling in the nectar, some more than others.
On another note I've secured 2 more out apiaries - one at a garden centre in a field of Christmas trees and another in a wild field with 400 fruit trees in it. Agreed to be able to site up to 10 in both locations.
Hi
I'm a new beekeeper (2weeks) so please be gentle. The first week my colony was very busy and I enjoyed watching my bees come and go into the hive loaded with pollen.
Last week the weather took a turn for the worse and was very cold in essex.
They have sugar syrup to keep them nourished as they have very little stores of their own.
Today the weather has finally warmed up but I have noticed quite a few bees crawling in the grass in front of the hive. Approx 40
Could this be because of the cold and no food stores or a nasty mite.
Any advise would be really appreciated.
Inspected all hives plus looked in a poly nuc I had hived a swarm in 6 days ago.
All hives busy.
No 4 had a couple of charged queen cells. I had no 1 hive empty and sterilised so I used it to carry out a Pagden AS, leaving the queen on her frame in the original position with the rest of the brood box filled up with frames of foundation and the super above it. All the other brood box frames and a frame of foundation are on no 1 stand.
The polynuc which contained a swarm that had settled in was drawing comb but part of the foundation on frame 1 had detached and slumped against frame 2. Result a messy lump stuck together and dripping with nectar. Having checked no sign of eggs I sliced out the messy bottom half of the frames wax and...
Having returned home from York beekeepers auction I inspected all hives with No 7, the weak hive showing increase following the addition of the frame of brood last week. I gave it another frame of brood to aid in continuing its development.
No 6 has not yet developed sufficiently to add a super but 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9 now have supers and the Hawthorn is in bloom. The eating apples are finishing their bloom but the Bramley cooking apple trees are still blooming. Foraging traffic is heavy during favourable spells of weather.
The afternoon was sunny and bees foraging. Standing underneath the apple tree there was a gentle hum of honeybees with an occasional deeper note as a bumble bee moved from flower to flower.
The hives in the apiary were busy but well behaved. Working through in turn the colonies were expanding steadily although not equally.
The weak hive which received a donated frame of brood last week had seen the queen start to lay on a third side of comb. There may not be a lot of bees in the hive but they have collected a lot of nectar.
Hive 3 had produced a charged queen cell. Only one however. Since the queen is now the oldest in the apiary I am thinking it could be superceding hm. I'm going to let them get on with it.
I caught a bee between...
As I am otherwise engaged tomorrow I inspected the hives today. The dramatic improvement in the weather has kicked the colonies up a gear. Added supers where required. The weak hive showed improvement. To give it a boost I took a frame of brood from one of the stronger hives, shook off the bees and donated the brood to the weak colony.
I had a grand day out at Meon Valley BKA's 37th annual auction today. Plenty of great tea and cake to keep the energy up was a welcome start.
Unlike GBKA auction (next weekend) they had a listing of the 280 odd lots which was helpful.
A lot of langstroth, MD and commercial hives as well as some odd lots including a garden rotavator, pillar drill and a very Heath Robinson hand made extractor that had no gearing......! Work that out for yourself !
I came away with 5 BS nucs and a pair of apideas for a song and a big container of odds and ends which included some fine aluminium feeders for nucs and tools.
I missed out on the solar wax extractors - a lot of demand - and also a heather honey press that didn't make its reserve but by then...
Neither am I but CVB's link takes you straight to the post ... explains there.
A bit of an update of the flowering progress of this useful crop.
Compared with 2015 (for example) the OSR across North Wiltshire is definitely behind normal - by around 3 weeks I estimate - with some fields in full flower on to a 3rd or 4th pod set and others barely starting to bolt and produce flower heads.
Around 15 years ago, the flowering of the OSR seemed to coincide more with the hive build up and seemed to match the brood growth. More recently I've seen the flowering almost towards the 3rd quarter of flowering before the bees got a sniff as they simply weren't in the right place...however this was also because my own colonies were behind the curve in successive springs compared with the 1990s.
Having changed my autumn and...
The day being sunny with a low chance of showers and the bees hard at work I inspected all hives. The busiest, strongest colony was expanding with a frame and half of remaining space so I have given it a super.
All the remaining hives have basically remained static having the same number of frames of brood as last inspection. BIAS present in all, young bees orienting in the sun and the queen laying in the vacated sections of brood frames. Despite some hives having pollen going in the actual stocks of pollen don't show much being stored. Perhaps the coming weeks promised weather improvement will provide better supplies and increased rate of laying.
Weak number 7 remains the same. I had thoughts of donating a frame of emerging brood but...
Hello my one reader
Well I sincerely hope you had a better day of weather than we did in North Wiltshire. As I type it's pouring down here - but I can't complain too much as managed to get out earlier around 12 noon and popped on 5 supers onto the WBC colonies. All the frames are foundation bar one in the centre that's drawn comb. I have alot of foundation needing drawing out this year as culled a fair few super frames last year and also melted down a few as they had set OSR in them.
Each colony had also taken down the 5 litres of ambrosia I had fed as a precaution. 50/50 on whether to feed again as weather is improving after today.
And have spent the afternoon finishing off the third article for the local magazine and planning a big...
well I have been asked to write some articles in my local parish magazine (readership 5 villages and a few hamlets) in beekeeping related subjects....
....maybe I'll combine them all into a book that I have long considered writing. I won't bore people here with it !!
Down in Devon this week. the wind is very chilled and occasional rain showers. Checking on my favourite weather forecast app, Weather Underground - it suggests we may have 17 deg next week...but I wouldn't bet on it !
KR
S
Well my one reader...today was a turn up for the books. After my rant about the weather earlier, the day was far better than forecast and I managed inspections of 12 colonies and made 2 nucs too.
The first site - all was calm and sadly one is queenless. One last chance to save them by putting in a frame of brood. There's an outside chance there is an unmated virgin in there but I'm not hopeful. I also gave a litre of Ambrosia as these bees are further behind my main apiary.
The main difference is the forage - lots more open fields and grassland and a fledgling orchard or pear, apple, plum and mirabelles...though none out just yet.
On to the main apiary - where I've been battling with the railway gangs who keep piling spoil on the...
Hello my one reader.
well today I am going to be a little uncouth and say what the Bl**""y hell is going on with the weather. I like you am extremely frustrated by the intermittent April we're having. 17 deg one minute, frost and 8 deg the next with rain. oh and wind. cr4p cr4p cr4p for the bees and my mental health too !
As it's such a poor build up I'm planning on feeding today Ambrosia that I have pre-mixed to all. IF it warms up later I need to check 2 colonies as I suspect they are bursting. It only takes a week of better weather (I'm told by Weather Underground and other sites that this won't come until May) and then it'll be instant build up and the bees will likely go swarming mad.
We have to remember in this country that our...
thoughts on removing bees from a building.
Cut outs or Trap outs are never plain sailing.
I think the first decision you have to make with the home owner is how disruptive to the fabric of the building will the job be ? cutting timber, roof panels etc etc you putting a foot through a ceiling you name it it can happen especially if the colony is in a confined space
then you also have to deal with the issue the bee entrance is a long way from the colony so there will be alot of bees returning to the combs once you've removed them.
I presume you have a colony or two on frames anyway...
I would construct a frame to support a brood chamber and frames with foundation on to sit adjacent to the current entrance/exit to the colony. I would...
