What did you do in the Apiary today?

beeno said:

Has she got enough drawn comb to lay in?

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Hopefully yes. When the swarm happened I transferred some capped stores to the new hive and replaced it with new foundation. The bees have been busy drawing it out. They also have a super which is partly drawn too.

beeno said:

Has she got enough drawn comb to lay in?

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Since the 10th of April?
I should hope so

Out apiary inspection today with added grass mowing fun! One queen somehow appeared above the excluder, soon put that right and my first attempted swarm cells this season suitably dealt with. All of last years queen rearing efforts seem to be doing well which rather reinforces the need to get on with the q rearing very soon.

35 bursting overwinterd nuc of fantastic Cornish Amm, checked for queens etc and now have brood extensions fitted to give them space until I can finish the new roofs, UEOMF floors and broodboxes....

Some clown has been fitting pixie doors to the trees in the woodland dell apiary.... well made me smile!

Hot tub beckons!!!

Chons da

Made up my first bait hive. Don’t have any lemon grass oil or swarm lure, but did rub some beeswax that I had extracted over the inside of the nuc. Put on a couple of frames of foundation. Wait and see if there is any interest. Had a couple of FB alerts from local beekeepers reporting swarms today.

E&MBees said:

Made up my first bait hive. Don’t have any lemon grass oil or swarm lure, but did rub some beeswax that I had extracted over the inside of the nuc. Put on a couple of frames of foundation. Wait and see if there is any interest. Had a couple of FB alerts from local beekeepers reporting swarms today.

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Save your propolis and paint the inside of your bait hives.

Erichalfbee said:

Save your propolis and paint the inside of your bait hives.

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Ok. Thanks for the tip Dani.

I assume that I collect together all the little bits that I scrape off during inspections. How do I get it to liquid form? Does it need dissolving in something?

Meths is fine.
Somebody will chip in to say it’s poisonous .....but you shouldn’t be drinking it
A tip I picked up from pargyle, just keep a screw topped jar with meths in it and drop all your propolis gunge in it.
Then just dip a paintbrush in as you need to.

I didn't have any meths so used some surgical spirit but it seems to whiff a bit too much. Not sure I want to use it!

Newbeeneil said:

I didn't have any meths so used some surgical spirit but it seems to whiff a bit too much. Not sure I want to use it!

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The alcohol will evaporate.
Trust me. It’s ok on the boxes.

Erichalfbee said:

Meths is fine.
Somebody will chip in to say it’s poisonous .....but you shouldn’t be drinking it
A tip I picked up from pargyle, just keep a screw topped jar with meths in it and drop all your propolis gunge in it.
Then just dip a paintbrush in as you need to.

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Thanks Dani. I normally scrape it off into the compost bin, but will save it from now on.

Checked 4 q- padgen's and 3 nucs with spare cells I did on April 20th. We have had fantastic mating weather here the last couple of weeks so I was expecting lots of nice new laying Queens. None ! didn't even see any virgins although all the cells looked to have hatched normally. A couple had polished cells but most were storing nectar and pollen everywhere on the frames which isn't good. Added test frames to a couple but will probably end up shaking most of them out.

On the plus side all my Q+ colonies are doing very well and piling in the hawthorne.

E&MBees said:

Thanks Dani. I normally scrape it off into the compost bin, but will save it from now on.

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If it was good enough for Stradivarius to put on his violins ... good enough for me. All my new boxes and bait hives get painted with it ... the meths or (alcohol in your cae) evaporates in no time .. just leaves this lovely beehive smell behind and a nicely propolised interior which saves the bees doing it ..

Had a 'day off' today - had to do a bit of Home Office work in the morning as some things don't stop for a bank holiday and rather than having to catch up on Monday I logged in whilst having breakfast.
Once I'd been to deliver donations at the foodbank I popped up to Ty Uchaf apiary to leave a case of honey for them in the barn and just to check on a suspected supersedure that I removed the queen to a nuc a few days ago - I think I was right, queen happy in the nuc and the bees in the Q- hive still as laid back with no attempt at making emergency QC's the two sealed QC's seem to be sufficient for them. Hawthorn in full swing here now
Realised it was 1100hrs as I was going home so pulled in and stood in silence for a couple of minutes, the beesuit deputising for uniform
Back home for a bit of gentle pottering and making up some more brood frames.

So checked my 2 hives and 1 nuc that I have at home in the garden this morning.... the hive that balled the queen a couple of weeks back and I added a frame of eggs to last week as they ended up as I thought hopelessly Q- now seem to have a new laying Queen and the frame of eggs has some nice fat QCs. I had made up 3 nucs with cells and left the new queen to it.

Was going to take 7 full supers of OSR honey off them today but that is a separate question on its own.

The nuc was at 1 point on 3 super frames coming out of winter is now on 5 frames of brood and a full nuc super of honey and pollen. Will be putting back into a full hive next week.

swore a lot, in a selection of different languages

Extracted 35kg of honey from 2 hives.
could have taken more but some was only just 19%
Give them another week to dry and cap.

thedozzer said:

Extracted 35kg of honey from 2 hives.
could have taken more but some was only just 19%
Give them another week to dry and cap.

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Or eat in the arctic cold.

Did a couple of Demarees on very strong hives, that I thought might be encouraged to start swarm preps being crowded in with the expected cold weather

Erichalfbee said:

Or eat in the arctic cold.

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That's pretty much what my good lady said, "they will sit in an eat it all next week"

But better they have something to eat and be ready when it warms up again
it is theirs after all, and they have worked hard for it.
There would be even more if they would just stop swarming (yes i know bad bee keeping)