31st August - Giving a helping hand.

I was asked take a look at some hives by a local long term beek. It transpired he has lost interest and his home made hives had not been opened for months.
Unsurprisingly brace comb was tangled everywhere and getting combs out resulted in much breakage of wax with stores leaking onto his solid floors. I started on no1 and despite the lack of treatment the bees were not showing signs of poor condition. They were easy to work with for me but the owner had to keep walking away as he was being mobbed. I put that down to his old suit and leather gloves holding many stings.
The super was partly filled and we took four frames of capped honey, leaving five partly capped and four full brood frames of stores. Bias was evenly spread over 7 brood frames
No 2 hive was even more tangled with super frames bonded to brood frames below. Despite not having a q/e the super was wall to wall with fully capped honey and no brood in it. We took the whole super for harvest. The brood box had seven frames of bias, one or two chalkbrood mummies present. The bees drove the owner off a few times but until I was actually reassembling the hive they had not been difficult to inspect or handle in latex gloves and a clean suit. Something triggered them into defensive mode and my suit took repeated stings so I completed putting the hive together and we retired till another day, taking the harvest with us.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Having extracted about 8 litres of honey from the first two hives I took it back to the owner on the 3rd of September. We then revisited his apiary and opened up a third hive (WBC) this time. I was somewhat dismayed to find this one contained a leaky brood box populated with a mix of super frames (sn1, sn4 and varying plastic spacers.
No surprise to find there was a lot of bridging between these frames or that the bees had built wild comb in the void below them. The void combs did not follow the line of the frames above them but were a swirling mass attached across the bottoms of the frames and the hive walls. One of those situations when you wonder where do we go from here?
The real surprise was that the frames and wild combs were full of honey with no sign whatsoever of eggs, larvae or capped brood despite the box being full of angry, ageing bees.
We took the view that the sensible way forward was to shake out the bees to beg their way into the neighbouring hives and remove the wreckage from the apiary.
I came away with the super frames to extract the honey while the owner has retained the wild comb which he will crush and strain.
Before leaving I lifted the roof and crown boards of the remaining hives to gain a top view of what to expect when I make my next visit. The remaining hives look at first glance to be in better order - I hope this proves to be true!

 

[Gilberdyke John]

9th September. Today I finished checking and removing harvest honey from the hives. Thes last ones were "better" than the previous ones although the last hive I checked was missing four frames from the brood box. The resulting void was a swirling mass of wild comb which I had to dig out. I don't know how long the combs have been in the hive but some of the wax was seriously "dark" To make life inconvenient the bees in that hive were seriously obnoxious and I had to employ thick rubber gloves to complete the checks on it Itchy hands tomorrow no doubt!
I applied Apilife- Var treatment to all hives today and will revisit next week to give dose 2
The furthest hive showed signs of deformed wing virusn

 

[Gilberdyke John]

16th September returned to the site to apply the second dose of Apilife Var. One hive had a cluster of bees hanging off the front but no fighting with the bees using the entrance. Possibly residents taking some fresh air away from the thymol fumes. I changed the old biscuits of Apilife for new and closed the roofs for another week.
The "crankiest" hives from last week were even more defensive than last time. Definitely in need of requeening in springtime!

 

[Gilberdyke John]

23rd September - third dose of Apilife Var
The owner of the colonies has returned from holiday and we met at his apiary this afternoon. The order of business was to add frames to fill the void in the hive which I had had to dig out wild comb from plus change the spent biscuits for new ones in all hives. This was effected rapidly and smoothly.
The bees were busy foraging and many bringing in yellow ivy pollen. When the treatment is complete in two weeks there are wet extracted supers to put under the brood boxes for the bees to clean out and supplement their winter stores.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

30th September - last dose of Apilife Var applied today.
I had warmed the bucket of set honey which came off the neglected hives so it was runny and took it back this lunchtime. From there the owner and myself went down to his apiary and placed the 4th, final dose of Apilife Var on all hives. The bees were busy today bringing in copious amountso of yellow ivy pollen and many crashing down with heavy loads of nectar. Even the bad tempered hives seemed too busy to bother with us and the operation went smoothly.
I think my next visit may be to trickle OA during Christmas week. Although the owner has advertised the colonies for sale the chances are they will still be around until spring time.