Good morning readers...
And here is the news
In North Wiltshire there are still more swarms to be had...
A bit tongue in cheek I know, but yesterday I hived the largest swarm I've seen for a long while. Collected from near Cirencester from a pine tree, I hived it last night, popped a spare super on top and fed it with syrup....here's hoping it goes on to produce a surplus as there is still time...
When I was up in the apiary last night around dusk, it was amazing to smell the nectar being evaporated from the 11 hives there, one can almost get high on it...the best stimulant known to man - Nature !
Happy Beekeeping - the weather is due to break this weekend sadly.
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No 1 Hive has larvae in both the brood box and super. Following inserting a q/e I noted the larvae in the brood box are smaller/younger than those in the super. Couldn't see eggs in either but if the larvae are younger I'm hopeful the still unfound queen is now in the brood box and a few weeks will see the super clearing of larvae and brood.
No 2 Hive is busy and the queen cell in the middle of the frame has opened. The marked queen is missing but lots of bees present in the hive. Supercedure seems to be in progress.
No 3 Hive is filling with nectar both in the brood and super. Can't find eggs or larvae but still much capped brood. Considering giving this hive a frame of brood from no 1
No 4 Hive still weak, no expansion at all. The...
I do and yes it works. Significantly reduces effect if u get it early enough. Works on other insect bites to.
Well, the weather was improving, so took yesterday off to go through 6 colonies and a nuc. All well, but 2 colonies seem to be held back...no sign of varroa, or any other diseases. Strange. Still, the honey flow is on and strong and I never fail to get excited by the sight of fresh white wax on the top bars of the super frames as they draw them out.
This morning I collected a prime swarm collected by a friendly pest controller. I have learnt to my cost of loosinv a swarm by absconding in the past that hiving a swarm in the morning is fraught with challenges.
Therefore, I placed a zinc queen excluder above an open mesh floor, opened the box the swarm was in and surrounded it by a brood and a half box, and then placed a full brood...
Attended the Saturday Association Apiary session this afternoon to find a nuc bursting with nectar and 7 queen cells so carried out AS
Arrived home and had an email offering me a boxed swarm which I declined.
Then I had a text from my son to say a small cluster of bees was hanging in the same hedge as yesterday's swarm but about 20yards from the site. I had a look and found a small cluster about the size of a cricket ball. Probably a cast from the same source as yesterday.
I might collect them after tea and chuck them in a dummied down box while I decide if there are enough bees to survive.
My Omlet hive stretching to 15 deep frames and became overcrowded in April.
Two supers (half normal size) are full and have now added two further supers of foundation.
Despite all this I have found 6 or so queen cells, which I removed but kept two adult queens with a few workers as attendants. These are fed with candy and reside in the airing cupboard
(held until I know the resident queens are laying)
[email protected]
I have divided the brood into two parts and have a virgin queen in the second brood box.
A day after doing this 17/05/14 I have seen several dozen drones walking about;. On inspection they all have damaged wings. It seems as though the workers have attacked them and thrown them out.
I have never witnessed this as...
Got a phone call from the lad who was first to ask for yesterdays swarm to say he was on his way to pick them up. While he was travelling another swarm came in from a different direction and settled in a hedge. I contacted the runner-up and as they live fairly close both swarms went off in two boxes in the same car boot. :)
I wonder how many more are likely to arrive :welcome:
Just after lunch I walked into the stables with my son. He cocked an ear and said "I can hear bees". I listened and detected the buzzing which with investigation was coming from outside the door we had just entered by. Looking out we could see a cloud of bees coming from the East and swirling round the bait hive sitting on top of an old piggery. The cloud slowly thinned out as bees settled on the front of the bait hive and entered until after about fifteen minutes the cloud had gone with just a few bees hovering in front of the hive and the rest on or in the box.
Having thought about it for a while I decided I had enough hives already and would struggle to accommodate another so I circulated our Association by email to offer them...
Following yesterday's wet and windy conditions I determined to carry out inspections today. I started by looking into the weakest hive (4) and little progress shown from last week. I couldn't see a queen but there were a couple of frames with capped worker brood and nectar/honey being brought in along with pollen. A smattering of red amongst the frames showed the foragers had been visiting the big horse chestnut tree in the village. Maybe there just isnt a critical mass of bees in this hive. If I could spot this queen I would cull her and unite with a stronger hive.
Moving along to hive 3, I had a quick look for queen cells as the sky was turning black again. A couple of empty cups in the upper middle of two frames and some clumps of...
One never ceases to be amazed at the price people will pay for utter tat. And also get into a bidding frenzy for items that are cheaper new. There were a few manual 10 frame extractors that fetched £300 plus, yet a smart 6 frame electric only got £100. WBCs fetched around £75 and wax, as ever, went to a certain chap based in Taunton. There were alot of shoddy brood and super boxes, and the usual cleaned out frames in various states of repair. Best lot of the day ? Well could have been a very handy, if heavy trailer. A Dartington long hive, well made, didn't reach it's reserve of £100.
I made ofd with 4 supers and frames, honey buckets and 5 bee books that cost be a pound a book, and some new odds and ends from Part Time bee supplies of...
A good hundred or more beekeepers descended on the Riding for the Disabled centre at Prestbury, Cheltenham today for the annual GBKA auction.Most memorable, mid way through the auction was halted and we were informed one of the live bee lots had been found to have American Foulbrood in it, so no live bees could be auctioned and a standstill order was placed on them all.-Will copy this into the health section, but beekeepers in and around Cheltenham need to be on their guard as the affected colony was local, according to one of the organisers.More later,
We've now got three colonies.
The darker bees swarmed last summer, while I was away in another country. Fortunately, Mrs FG rose to the challenge. She saw them hanging from an archway in the garden and bundle them (a few times) into our old wooden hive. We swapped them onto new frames when I got back and put them next to the hive they'd come from :-)
Both the new colony, and the old colony did really well through the summer, so we now have three, including the ones that started from the colony GWW gave us.
We've been leaving them alone through the Winter, but had to check them out this morning.
They are all in single brood box poly Langstroths, now, and every box is full of bees. We've got to give them all some more space, so it'll...
One of the most difficult things for cities to do is spread information. In fact, the only way to warn people of a natural disaster or let parents know a school is shut down is through the news. And the only way to reach everyone is by going to each and every house to do so. Of course, you could instead get all the citizens registered on a texting system to allow for easier transmission of information. Here are a few ways the city you live in could use texting.
Taking 911 texts
In an emergency situation, it may be easier and more discrete for someone in an emergency to text you. Many cities are switching to take 911 texts, according to PoliceOne.com. In fact, Texas City is the most recent one to make the switch. Of course, it is...
Those with the odd feisty hive learn to check their most angry colony at the end so the bees don't end up winding up the entire apiary. And it was as well I did as the last hive I checked today was a real pinger of a hive...but they are one of the strongest too.
Checked all the colonies, and intended to clip and mark the final queen I hadn't found...there she was, plump, enormous, and, another first for me...picked her up after removing my leather glove (wear marigolds underneath for this) and as I went to clip, she wriggled out and....TOOK FLIGHT
I have never see this ever before. I almost mistook her for a drone, but jumped up and she landed on my raised fist (think Diego Maradona jumping to handball in the 1986 world cup and...
Yesterday saw a lot of activity at the bait hive I keep on the roof of an old piggery but at 9.30 this morning there was none.
The four hives plus AS hive in the apiary showed low levels of activity at that time. By 12.00 activity had increased in the apiary, the apple trees were humming and a few bees were coming and going at the bait hive but no evidence of forage going into it.
This afternoon I attended the first association apiary session of the season. En route my daughter phoned me to say bees were swarming in my apiary and sent me photos of no2 hive covered in bees and a picture of a small cluster in the adjoining hedge. (This was the hive I had left a supercedure cell in last week).
I decided to complete my association visit...
Whilst I was out my son sent me a message to say the bait hive was being checked out by bees. Activity had diminished when I got home but still a lot of bees circling the vicinity.
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/picture.php?albumid=538&pictureid=3309
What i make the artificial pollen for bee health ?
What substitute are neeeded.
And so to what else has been happening......well I mentioned the 2 new paynes polys. I'm intrigued as to how they do. I intend to resurrect my old WBC to see which hives do best over winter....do polys win out, does the double wall of the wbc work better or will a well insulated National beat them all....all to think about in the Autumn.
Anyway, the supers on hives 1 to 4 seems to have kept the bees happy. Unlike some of the country who seems to be in the midst of a big flow, this area has been slower to respond, even though OSR is less than half a mile away, I hope the swarm control methods today will maintain my colony strength for ths May flow which is, in a good year, a banker.
I also swapped a large triple hive stand for a new...
Well, after 100% making it through the winter, and after a cursory check, followed by a thorough inspection of all colonies on 15 April, the weather forecast turning colder made me think an inspection was on the cards....after all they were all doing well. Thinking back a few years, mild winters, low mortality and then a cold spell preceeded by a warm spell often brings with it swarming as the colony is over run with the new brood hatching....and just waiting for the warmth of a May day to swarm.....not what is on the plan !
So I changed my diary around (easier as I am the boss, but I will work Sat in case anyone thinks I'm shirking) and, after driving through rain, torrential rain, as soon as I got to within 2 miles of the apiary, the...
No 1 hive chalkbrood seems to be abating as no mummies on the landing board this week. A few on the hive floor so I lifted the brood box off and cleaned it so I can better assess matters next week. Plenty of bias with drone cells in evidence. also stores. Bees laden with Yellow, Red and Orange Pollen wandering about inside.
The bees are starting to draw out comb in the super.
No 2 hive heaving with bees. The top super is almost full and the bees are starting to draw comb in the second super. Frame 4 had two queen cells one either side of the frame in the middle of the frame. One empty, the other almost ready to be sealed with a healthy looking larva. Frame 6 had four queen cells along the bottom edge, one with jelly in it.
I had a...
