I had a sting on my arm that started to track red down my arm with gravity by the time I’d got in and removed my beesuit. I used the heat pen all down the tracking, pressing the heat button several times. Normally I swell up and itch for 3 days, but it all went away within hours with just a...
The most sheltered spot in the garden apiary! Stand and 3 hives turned over. Suited up at 10pm. Hopefully Queens survived. Off to check out apiaries this morning. Fingers crossed.
This thread makes me wonder about the storing of bee colonies in a dark temperature regulated barn over harsh winters as is the practise of some commercial beekeepers in Canada.
My new out-apiary is perfect except the ground is sloped, but I’ve made some plinths that sit at an angle in the grass so that the hive parts lay horizontally when I stack them during inspections.
Shocking weather down in this part of Devon. Bees have stalled and I'm having to feed them. Next week is predicted to be another cold wet one. It's almost painful hearing everyone talking about splits, demarees and queen rearing!
Made 6 JMB boards and washed some old poly nucs and boxes that I’d rotated out. Hope to paint them up today. Need to make some more frames and sort out my bee shed which somehow gets very messy very quickly.
I just watched the BIBBA talk by Tony Jefferson on ‘Never waste a Queen cell’. He said something I hadn’t heard before - if introducing a Q cell to a queenless nuc, the queen once emerged and mated would not lay until all the brood from the previous queen had hatched. Also if you checked on the...
I have 6 colonies moved to a new apiary- south facing and sheltered, I’ve inspected all which are similar to many - gearing up nicely, but one colony had swarm cells including two mature capped Queen cells. Luckily her Mage was still in the box and I had a spare nuc ready!