Concerns for my amms.

[Curly green finger's]

Good luck... you need more Amm colonies!!!

I do I plan to split one or two next year and I'm looking to buy some more overwintered nucs and will travel to get them .
Pm me if you have any ? Or know of a good source.
You've already helped me this year and the nuc I had from cardigan honey has done well and produced some cut comb which I've been selling as chunk honey in 1lb jars for 8.50

 

[Curly green finger's]

Black girl on the sedum they still look pretty pure to me.

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[Swarm]

Nothing wrong with them, they still produce drones

 

[Curly green finger's]

Nothing wrong with them, they still produce drones

They do indeed , the more drones the better
Let the flood of black drones go forth up or down the olchon valley next year hopefully , going from 4 colonys to 10 in the spring .

 

[Swarm]

My F1 colonies behave much the same as the parent colony. They used to look exactly the same as well and I rarely introduced new queens until someone decided to try buckies and that was the end of that.
Some F1 workers were becoming banded and queens from these colonies were often ginger and their offspring were about 80% horrid. My landlord still has one of these ginger queens, he's and old softy and didn't want me to kill her. In fairness, this one proved to be one of the 20% Happy in a single brood and showing no signs of swarming this year. Gentle bees, too.
After a period of a few years, open mated queens are producing dark bees again. I will probably requeen second generation colonies for another year or two yet and hopefully things will return to the way they were.

 

[Curly green finger's]

My F1 colonies behave much the same as the parent colony. They used to look exactly the same as well and I rarely introduced new queens until someone decided to try buckies and that was the end of that.
Some F1 workers were becoming banded and queens from these colonies were often ginger and their offspring were about 80% horrid. My landlord still has one of these ginger queens, he's and old softy and didn't want me to kill her. In fairness, this one proved to be one of the 20% Happy in a single brood and showing no signs of swarming this year. Gentle bees, too.
After a period of a few years, open mated queens are producing dark bees again. I will probably requeen second generation colonies for another year or two yet and hopefully things will return to the way they were.

Will you be re-queening with your own raised Queen's ?.
I can relate to what your saying about the ginger Queen's.

I'm looking at the colony that I started the thread about tomorrow or Wednesday hopefully the syrup has helped kick start the queen I couldn't find.
If not I'll unite them.
Cheers
Mark

 

[Swarm]

Will you be re-queening with your own raised Queen's ?.
I can relate to what your saying about the ginger Queen's.

I'm looking at the colony that I started the thread about tomorrow or Wednesday hopefully the syrup has helped kick start the queen I couldn't find.
If not I'll unite them.
Cheers
Mark

I still have one colony that is entirely from my stock, I'll see what happens with these. If they bring on something ginger, I'll squash her (when my landlord isn't looking) In fairness, he has four colonies of very dark bees as well

 

[Curly green finger's]

I've just had a look at the amm colony and hm is there eggs being layed 2/3 frames and lots of polished cells ready .
She is black as coal so it looks like the superseded queen mated with some of the other three colony's in the apiary .
Syrup being stored and capped and there's ivy pollen going into the hive.
So I'm going to hold of on the syrup for a week as the ivy is being worked .
Even if the ivy doesn't come to much they've stored syrup since I started this thread.
I'm relieved and have put the brood brake down to lack of stores no flow and or apivar treatment being used.
Ow I also scraped propolis of the apivar strips as it's week 3/4 .
Mite drop is over 150 after three days .
My nucs in Shropshire are being treated but two have had 0 mite drop
Strange considering the others have.

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[Curly green finger's]

I've just had a look at the amm colony and hm is there eggs being layed 2/3 frames and lots of polished cells ready .
She is black as coal so it looks like the superseded queen mated with some of the other three colony's in the apiary .
Syrup being stored and capped and there's ivy pollen going into the hive.
So I'm going to hold of on the syrup for a week as the ivy is being worked .
Even if the ivy doesn't come to much they've stored syrup since I started this thread.
I'm relieved and have put the brood brake down to lack of stores no flow and or apivar treatment being used.
Ow I also scraped propolis of the apivar strips as it's week 3/4 .
Mite drop is over 150 after three days .
My nucs in Shropshire are being treated but two have had 0 mite drop
Strange considering the others have.

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Or the brood break could be because of the high varroa count .

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