RoseCottage
Field Bee
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2009
- Messages
- 718
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Near Andover, UK
- Hive Type
- WBC
- Number of Hives
- From 5 to 2 and hopefully a better year
Today has been a very strange day.
Our girls start to the year has been a difficult one. We have two hives which both went into winter strongly. However, both have suffered a very late start to the year.
Sadly for one of our colonies the start was too late.
Our other colony has 4 half frames of brood...they seem to be getting stronger as the days go by. They still have food and there are a lot of bees (in relative terms) in the hive. They have fondant and pollen patty but they haven't really bothered with these. There is quite a lot of activity on the landing board, so we are increasingly hopeful.
We went home from our apiary and discussed the situation. Our first loss is pretty disappointing. We wondered if we had them in the garden whether they would have been better off over winter. Possibly but the location isn't really practical.
We decided that this evening in the sunny weather we would go for a walk and stop in at the pub. As we left the house, my wife noticed that there were some bees hovering around by the back door. There are a couple of
hives in the village so we assumed that they were visitors. But there were 10-20 bees around a crack in the wall as we left for the pub...almost like a landing board
.
So we returned from the pub around 9pm and I had a little look with the torch from my phone. There are bees still inside the crack overnight mostly out of sight but definately still in there. It is not a big location and there are a couple of small circular holes in the soil.
So what could be going on?
Surely a swarm would be much more obvious and large. A caste would be wrong for this time of year - that would assume a swarm first? a bit early? What other options are there?
The wall holds up the side of a herb bed. It is only about 3ft tall from ground level and is holding soil up.
We may, just may, have some sort of 'colony' trying to establish itself. So we have put out a WBC a few feet away and placed a couple of frames of stores and a dollop of honey in the Brood Box. Tomorrow we will get some lemongrass oil - what do we do with this?
If they are establishing themselves right outside our backdoor - that is a problem...We'll need to call a beekeeper!!!!!
How do we get them out? Do we leave a while to grow stronger - cannot afford the risk to family with that.
So all thoughts are welcome. Any thoughts at all really...
As I said a sad and bizarre day today,
Sam.
Our girls start to the year has been a difficult one. We have two hives which both went into winter strongly. However, both have suffered a very late start to the year.
Sadly for one of our colonies the start was too late.
Our other colony has 4 half frames of brood...they seem to be getting stronger as the days go by. They still have food and there are a lot of bees (in relative terms) in the hive. They have fondant and pollen patty but they haven't really bothered with these. There is quite a lot of activity on the landing board, so we are increasingly hopeful.
We went home from our apiary and discussed the situation. Our first loss is pretty disappointing. We wondered if we had them in the garden whether they would have been better off over winter. Possibly but the location isn't really practical.
We decided that this evening in the sunny weather we would go for a walk and stop in at the pub. As we left the house, my wife noticed that there were some bees hovering around by the back door. There are a couple of
hives in the village so we assumed that they were visitors. But there were 10-20 bees around a crack in the wall as we left for the pub...almost like a landing board
.So we returned from the pub around 9pm and I had a little look with the torch from my phone. There are bees still inside the crack overnight mostly out of sight but definately still in there. It is not a big location and there are a couple of small circular holes in the soil.
So what could be going on?
Surely a swarm would be much more obvious and large. A caste would be wrong for this time of year - that would assume a swarm first? a bit early? What other options are there?
The wall holds up the side of a herb bed. It is only about 3ft tall from ground level and is holding soil up.
We may, just may, have some sort of 'colony' trying to establish itself. So we have put out a WBC a few feet away and placed a couple of frames of stores and a dollop of honey in the Brood Box. Tomorrow we will get some lemongrass oil - what do we do with this?
If they are establishing themselves right outside our backdoor - that is a problem...We'll need to call a beekeeper!!!!!
How do we get them out? Do we leave a while to grow stronger - cannot afford the risk to family with that.
So all thoughts are welcome. Any thoughts at all really...
As I said a sad and bizarre day today,
Sam.
