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And then there were two . . .

After a hectic day of work yesterday in London, I finally got the train back, after spending ages on Swindon station (delays due to signalling failure, then single-track working!). I only had an hour at home, though, as I had to get into the truck and drive for 2 hours to PolyHive's place to pick up a nuc :-) I sorted the hive location out (now fairly horizontal) and left for the M5, M42, nearly up North, drive which went well. PH seemed a nice bloke and led me on a crazy drive to his apiary along the border of a big field. Lots of poly nucs and a few poly hives (duh!) mostly gone to bed at 20.30 ish. The nuc was full of bees! 4 Langstroth frames and a couple of National frames (cable tied into Langstroth frames after their lugs...
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Inspection 10th July

Mrs FG and I just went through our first colony to see how they were doing. Answer: very well - loads of capped honey and nectar in preparation for more. The top box (where the bees were) is now mostly capped stores, and very heavy. There was still some brood-rearing going on, but it seemed that nearly all available cells has nectar/honey in, including those that had larvae in the bottom. We saw quite a few larvae, some small, some quite big. We saw lots of capped brood, although they seem to be using lots of new wax which looks very pale and hard to differentiate from capped stores. I couldn't see any eggs :-( The light wasn't great - the glade is getting well grown over at tree level and keeps the hives in the shade except in...
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Hive sliding apart

Hi as you may be able to tell I am new at beekeeping. One of the concerns I have is the hives sliding off or getting knocked, or do the bee's stick it together . i saw in Beekeeping at bottom of garden , some slide locks,can't seem to find any source, but came across z springs on David Cushmans item on Z springs, I expect they are allso like hen's teeth. But decieded I will have a go at making some simular by useing his screw template pat in oak and adding extra screw at pivot at 1 o clock and extra length of wire for leaverage to hold wire as it is shaped. I have a plentyful supply of 14 g s s bike spokes as I used to be a wheel builder in previous life. Any idear's befor I wast my Time. Left over bits of spoke would do as Queen bee...
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Mon 5th July.

Saw 6 play cups. The Honey flow still going well.:) Did have a look at top super a few days ago, but was still not all capped. But all capped today. Put a clearer board on and will extract this super Wednesday and the last super I took off . I will put 1 empty super back on also. Right Hive. 19 frames of brood. 1st super Full. Put C/B on. 2nd super Full But not all capped. 3rd super 4/5. 4th super 2/3.
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Beehaus legs spreading under weight

I thought something did not look correct the other day, but this evening having just sold 2 nucs housed in the beehaus, it is now empty,ut this has given me a chance to have a good look at the hive after now 10 months of use. On inverting the hive it is clear that although the metal legs are securely attached to the grey plastic end sections, these end sections are flexing / have flexed due to in my opinion quite a light loading. The hive had probably dipped approx 1" at one end, and there is a good 1-2" of movement on the legs when taking hold and pulling and pushing them with the hive inverted. I have at most only had 22 std national frames in and 2 supers (1 std national super) on top, so nothing compared to my typical hive...
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Mon 28th June.

Still No Queen Cells?? The Honey is coming in fast now. Will have a look in a few days at the top super to see if it’s all capped. Added another super. Right Hive. 20 frames of brood. 1st super Full. But not all capped. 2nd super 4/5 Almost Full. 3rd super 1/2. 4th super Empty.
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Latest inspection

They looked very good, although a bit grumpier than usual which, coupled with me being more tired and clumsy than usual, made for a bit more defensiveness than I've seen before. There were definitely more bees than last week, but the big difference is the stores - they are really piling them in. They have drawn at least some of all the frames now, and only the outside ones weren't being used for lots of honey. They seem to be using every available space, including some emerged cells in the brood frames, so I can't help thinking this won't be good for the build-up speed. The half-foundation frames I put in have been enthusiastically drawn and extended with lovely white wax. They've made lots of larger cells in these 'free' bits for...
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Combine both hives

I combined both hives tonight, took the brood box off the second hive and placed it on the newspaper on the first hive. was about two hundred bees on the second floor. shuck them infront of the hive about 10 ft. After ten minutes all the bees had found there way into the first hive. went quite well really, could hear them chewing on the paper when i came away. Fingers crossed.
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Very happy bees

Mrs FG and I just completed this week's inspection together. There are twice as many bees as when we first got this colony as a nuc; there are loads of larvae and eggs (yes, we can both see eggs properly now!). There are some stores along the top of most frames, but not loads. There is all sorts of different pollen colours. We didn't see the queen. We found it very difficult to get the light right (in a woody glade with sometimes sun, sometimes shade as the wind blew). Worst of all - we both went totally into "Ooooh, look at that!" mode and neither of us really recorded anything. I did note some capped drone cells and no real play cups (a few raised cells with larvae in them, but I'm pretty sure these were worker cells converted...
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Complete cock up!!

Did another full inspection, today Sunday 2.00pm. Was a nice sunny day probably the best all week. Was really going to make an effort and find at least one queen. Hive one half way though, found her and some new eggs. Happy days, tried to mark her but gave up. Thought i was going to hurt her, only had thin gloves on but was very nervous. Tried a queen marking cage, but gave up as i kept catching workers. Next hive alls well, took the QE off yesterday as there storing all there honey in the brood box, not drawing any comb in the Super. Despite my constant attempts at spraying the foundation with 1-1. Found the queen on the third frame, no eggs. Picked her up to mark her and when putting the frame down must of squeezed to hard. Dead...
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My Bee Blog

Well, I thought that I'd bite the bullet and start my bee blog. The nuc was collected on Friday 28th May 2010 left to rest for 48 hours and hived on Sunday 30th. 4 frames of brood at various stages and two heavy frames of stores. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the quality of the frames, DN1s, at various spacings but we're sorting that out and transferring to DN4s. They were hived with with a further 6 frames of foundation and fed with a gallon of weak syrup. As of Friday 11 June, virtually all of the foundation has been drawn and there is 5 full frames of brood all in a good pattern. A super was added on the 11th without the QE and hopefully they will have start to draw this. Next Inspection Friday 18th.
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Apidea success with a few virgins

Well, after a couple of weeks of indifferent weather, you might recall I had a surfeit of virgins (oh how I wish !!) queens that is, and having helped them out of the cells when cutting them out of a colony on OSR, I borrowed a few Apideas form a pal and we thought, well, the worst that can happen is they get rejected and it's a wasted exercise. Well, took the lids off the Apideas today and am very pleased to report all three have a laying queen. I marked 2 of them, and one of them I also managed to clip (the other was extremely flighty to thought better to leave her until another day.) The third nuc - well, it appears I have a laying queen in there but......having checked throughout (and there is only a cupful of bees in there) I...
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Tue 15th June.

The brood box and all supers still full of bees. And still No Queen Cells?? Saw about 6 play cups. Saw the Queen.:D I put a clearer board the top super. Extracted the 2 supers and got about 42lb. The 1st super had loads of crystallized honey in. Right Hive. 20 frames of brood. 1st super. Full 2nd super 4/5. Almost Full 3rd super 1/2.
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Water carrying

OK, while the "is the queen laying or not?" question is still outstanding, here's something new: 20 or so bees from our hive are visiting the main garden, filling up with water at the pond, then spiralling back over the road, 100m or so to where the hive is located. I can see the go and return path, with a constant loop of bees, fetching water for the hive. What's this about? It isn't very hot, I'm not feeding them candy. Are they having to use their stored honey? If so, why? FG
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