Search results

Inspected 15 of mine today for the first time since April 4th so was expecting to see plenty of swarm activity. The bees were generally looking very good with an average of around 10 frames of BIAS amazingly although the colonies are plenty strong enough there was not 1 cell in any of...

It was a brood and 1/2 with old combs i want to change so put a new brood box on top to do a bailey so it's now 2 and 1/2 brood all full of brood it's a monster already!

Checked a few of my very strongest hives for swarming but nothing happening yet thankfully. My star colony has drawn out and layed up a complete brood box in the last 10 days!

Sounds strange i've never seen anything like that. Maybe you have some comb in the hive that has small cells and the young from that comb were on thier maiden flights?

Yes I was umming and aahing but they were following and not just buzzing me but stinging straight away also smoking them had no effect on calming them atall,i've had colonies like this before and they have always got worse and worse as the season progresses. The apiary is a great site for me and...

Ok this one isn't going to be popular with everyone but this evening I euthanised a colony. It was a pretty strong brood 1/2 but they were getting more and more aggressive over time. I inspected them last week and they were really grumpy and smoking them had no effect. They were following for a...

I hold the empty frame up to the sun and if I can't see light through it I bin it.

Had a quick look at the last hive I haven't inspected this year in my mates garden. 10 frames BIAS and a very good amount of fresh nectar. Added a super. So I took 29 colonies and 6 nucs into winter and came out with 26 colonies and all 6 nucs. The 3 failures were 2 x queen failure and 1 x...

I had the same thing in one of mine last week. Imo there's no way a q should go off lay at this time of year. I squished her and united the colony.

Inspected the last 10 I haven't looked in yet this year. All doing very well with between 7 and 12 frames of brood apart from 1 which had only 2 frames of bees and 1 frame of brood . The 1 frame of brood looked very good though so I think they will make it through,sometime these tiny colonies...

Did 1st proper inspetion of the 14 I have at the home apiary. 1 had loads of bees but only tiny patches of sealed worker brood on 2 frames but no eggs or larvae so for some reason the Q had failed,squished her and united with a weaker colony. Most of the others were doing really well with around...

Lifted the crown boards off a couple i'm worried about,as I suspected they were absolutely heaving with bees but very low on stores. Luckily I had a couple of supers from last year with bits of honey in so decided to kill 2 birds with 1 stone and popped them on. Weather looks poor for the...

Looks like it will all go to waste though,weather looks very cool and unsettled for the forseeable :(

Took 8 empty 14x12's to the new apiary site ready for putting spring splits in which judging by the way the bees are progressing won't be too long. I've had a quick look at most of mine now and apart from 1 loss (nosema i think) they are looking very good, all having nicely laying queens and...

Did nothing in the apiary but judging by the vast amounts of pollen coming in I'll be inspecting sooner rather than later.

Transferred a couple of strong overwintered nuc's to full hives, probably a bit early but the weather looks mild for the forseeable. I want to free up some nuc's ready for splits,determined to keep 1 step ahead of the bees this year.

Went to new apiary site to carry on setting up. Already have 2 hives there and they were both working very hard on the willow. Had to wear my suit as they were very 'pingy' even though I was only walking around the hives.

Quick bit of hefting and as I suspected some of mine are running VERY light on stores,not surprising when they're on about 10 frames with 6 frames of brood! Added 2.5kg fondant to 3 and 1.25kg to another 4,suspect i'll need to add more unless it warms up a bit.