Losing the will

[Quis Custodiet]

Another swarm just heading out- that's it for me. I'm really not enjoying it anymore... Neighbours running for cover, garden out of bounds for the 4th weekend running; sting on my neck has come up like a goitre.

Too late now, but could you not have sprayed them with a sprayer / hosepipe? That sudden change to rain would give you time to deal with the problem.

 

[Quis Custodiet]

.................. the stings are coming too regularly.

Enrico has given you some pretty decent advice and it is also worth remembering that it is usual to develop an immunity to stings after a few seasons......little or no swelling and only short term minor discomfort at the site of the sting.

 

[Fritillary]

that's it for me. I'm really not enjoying it anymore...

Well what you describe doesn't sound like fun at all. I'm not surprised you've decided to call it a day, but I am sorry that it seems things weren't in your favour. It sounds as though the bees in question were just not the sort you could have in your garden for a start. I had to move bees in a hurry last year, but was fortunate in having locals who helped me out with alternate sites, moving, and also moral support. If I hadn't, I might well have given up too.

 

[pargyle]

Beagle....Get the best suit you can afford, wear secondary clothes underneath and get plastic gloves with gauntlets, use wellies and thick socks. If you CANT get stung your confidence will go up in leaps and bounds. As you get more confident you can start to discard bits of your clothing. Honestly, that is the way to go.....
E

Totally agree ... and what's more is that, when you feel more confident, you handle the bees better and they seem to sense that you are not a threat and become easier to handle (of course, that might just be your mind playing tricks but - who cares ? it just feels a lot better and the stings seem to get less ...).

Try rubbing a few drops of Olbas oil on your gloves before you start - to some extent it keeps the bees off your hands and makes them move out of the way of your fingers so less chance of squishing bees by accident.

Lastly, talk to your bees ... tell them what you are going to do before you do it ...it serves two purposes ... it gives you thinking time - it gives the bees a bit of time to get used to what you are about to do - and it just seems to make inspections a little easier and more relaxing.

 

[Beagle23]

Thanks I am working on it. My suit is OK but the netting is a bit flimsy and a little too close to the face.

Apologies to the OP, don't mean to hijack your thread.

 

[Helen]

Wear a baseball cap to keep the netting away from your face.

 

[Spikedog]

I also have drawn up the items for sale list by reason of sheer anguish and frustration. Only today on arriving at the apiary did I see the tail end of a swarm heading out over the fields. Oh the frustration after the medication, the syrup, the fondent, the stings and indeed, time applied to the little buggers since last season and then the satisfaction of working the remaining colonies kicked in - some massively strong and others requiring some assistance in their development - as my wife and fellow Beek says there are and will be ups and downs when dealing with livestock - no certainty. They will introduce you to neurosis but Bee "keeping" (or loosing) is addictive - the bleak will pass, return and pass again .... hope you stay with it.

 

[Poly Hive]

Back garden beekeeping is a fraught business. For some it is simple for others a genuine nightmare.

It will pass and moving to an out apiary would make a massive odds.

PH

 

[Jimy Dee]

Slangers - why do I get the feeling you are taking this a bit too seriously. Consider the front of a beehive as natures TV. Simply watch the bees coming and going and look at their pollen sacks and try and make out what they are bringing in. A chair and good bee suit and sit at the side of the hives on a summers day/evening and simply enjoy the bee airport. Let them ebb and flow with the seasons and if you have honey at the end of the year well and good, if not there is always next year. Above all try and let the bees alone, outside of the very bare necessities, ie if you provide your bees with a good dry home and location (off the ground and a good roof with deep sides) and if you treat for varroa in the winter, and an artificial swarm once a year, believe me the bees will do just fine. You dont have to be very good at this, just enjoy it. Dont beat yourself up over loosing swarms, nature needs all the feral hives it can get its hand on right now. I know there are plenty righteous punters that will slate me for condoning the loss of swarms - I dont but it happens to us all. Dont mind the righteous. There will also be the crowd that want to control everything the bees do and micro manage every part of their existence - it cracks me up. Bees have been around for 25 million years or so and managed just fine without man. In fact mankind has only brought doom to their existence (we spread varroa by transporting bees across water ways!) Other contributors are correct - cut down on the numbers, and enjoy them.

 

[Anduril]

Slangers - why do I get the feeling you are taking this a bit too seriously. Consider the front of a beehive as natures TV. Simply watch the bees coming and going and look at their pollen sacks and try and make out what they are bringing in. A chair and good bee suit and sit at the side of the hives on a summers day/evening and simply enjoy the bee airport. Let them ebb and flow with the seasons and if you have honey at the end of the year well and good, if not there is always next year. Above all try and let the bees alone, outside of the very bare necessities, ie if you provide your bees with a good dry home and location (off the ground and a good roof with deep sides) and if you treat for varroa in the winter, and an artificial swarm once a year, believe me the bees will do just fine. You dont have to be very good at this, just enjoy it. Dont beat yourself up over loosing swarms, nature needs all the feral hives it can get its hand on right now. I know there are plenty righteous punters that will slate me for condoning the loss of swarms - I dont but it happens to us all. Dont mind the righteous. There will also be the crowd that want to control everything the bees do and micro manage every part of their existence - it cracks me up. Bees have been around for 25 million years or so and managed just fine without man. In fact mankind has only brought doom to their existence (we spread varroa by transporting bees across water ways!) Other contributors are correct - cut down on the numbers, and enjoy them.

This comment doesn't help the situation. It is too simplistic, It may be fine for leave alone beekeepers, but it has consequences, which Slanders is well aware of. He needed a support network of beekeepers to help him physically through every aspect of the beekeeping year. This would have given reassurance, knowledge and support. You cannot learn everything from a book or a forum, we can guide from afar but this is not enough. Sometimes you need to have a mentor, which will allow you to take a step back and gather your thoughts. Everyone of us is different.

 

[REDWOOD]

Sleepless nights, desperation and dilemmas, I thinks it's fair to say we have all been their and things do get better. Only last Friday I lost a swarm because I done a 8 day inspection and not a seven due to a sudden change in my shift pattern because of a fellow employee was sick. After all we are hobby beekeepers with our real time focused on work which leaves us a minimum time to do our best.
My only advice to you it to join an association or go and see how other beekeepers work.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Meetings tend to be too far away for me

My association meet twentyfive miles away. It's not required I attend every meeting but I still made some good friends and valuable contacts.

 

[jeff33]

Is it your lot up for sale on the net? Reconsider please, they bring more joy than headaches (most of the time). I ended up with several nucs after swarms and split last year and managed to reduce back down to 4 hives by the end of July keeping the best queens out of the lot.

 

[birdsandbees]

Having read through the posts I can see where you are coming from, its possibly the worst time of year!
weather and daylight still restrict when you can inspect and they can decide to swarm in the flip of a coin, and as I have found this year... all at once!
so, this takes longer to go through them and decide what manipulation to carry out, not helped by them becoming very defensive at the moment.
In my case I have a not very sympathetic OH who seems to constantly moan at me about my bloody bees which takes away the fun too!!!
as someone has said already I also talk to them while working through them, its not necessarily nice things either but I find that it helps with tension building up and keeps me calmer.
one of the best things I did was move my bees out of the back garden, I loved having the hives at home and I still quarantine the odd one there but if they decide to get grumpy it makes doing anything a chore, before now I have had to cut the lawn wearing a bee suit to avoid getting stung, the dogs were getting stung and so were the kids, it's not much fun for anyone.
swarms happen, nobody is infallible and I've lost one this year, don't beat yourself up about it.
stings wise, I started with a cheap suit and got stung... lots! wore leather gloves and got stung quite a bit, eventually I bought a better quality suit and started using thick but tight fitting Nitrile gloves (so I can feel where they are and handle frames better) only get the occasional sting now.

If you enjoyed it before you will again, just reduce your colonies (money raised can be used to buy a better suit) if possible find an out apiary and most importantly take deep breaths and keep calm.

I hope it works out for you, if you get through the spring madness it will soon calm down again.

I should take on some of this advice myself, its easy to get carried away, I'm now up to 16 colonies! too many really for the time and money required that I don't really have.

 

[Stiffy]

Unless it is very large, I wouldn't even contemplate ever keeping bees in a garden. I try and keep as gentle a bee as I can but after manipulations, certain weather conditions or when I have taken honey supers off, they can turn into little monsters and sting anything that comes within range.
I would suggest finding an out apiary and move them away from people, you would be surprised how much easier it can be when you haven't that pressure in the back of your mind.
S

 

[philipm]

I started with my bees near the garden a big mistake having to work the garden in a bee suit wasn't fun.When council workers cut some overhanging branches on my boundary with the road I realised it was time to move them or risk a major stinging incident.They are now in our field some way from the house and away from harm.Yes fair enough I carry stuff in a wheel barrow or big stuff with the tractor but piece of mind is less stressful so I can see the point of a good out apiary.

 

[Swarm]

Not worth the hassle.

 

[Vortex]

My home apiary is 10feet from my back door .. admittedly it's on the garage roof which is 5ft above ground level and behind a set of leylandi.
Occasionally after and inspection .. especially if it's not warm and they've not been able to forage we'll have issues with 1 or 2 guard bees..
But even when I've done something daft like leave a frame of crystallized honey in the workshop and had a workshop full of bees have we had any significant issues.
I think a lot is down to the base temperament of the bees... if you can inspect them 90% of the time without them flying off the frames and bombarding you (90% of the time most of mine will just sit there) then you have a good basis to work from. I fail to understand why people put up with bad tempered bees.

 

[Poly Hive]

Very simple Vortex they have nothing to compare with and even if they do very likely the temperament is the same.

I have just bought two which are crap. They are prone to just about every sin known. The vendors are lovely people and were unaware that what they had was so poor and I am not going to tell them. These two lots are for re-queening ASAP.

PH

 

[Stiffy]

My home apiary is 10feet from my back door .. admittedly it's on the garage roof which is 5ft above ground level and behind a set of leylandi.
Occasionally after and inspection .. especially if it's not warm and they've not been able to forage we'll have issues with 1 or 2 guard bees..
But even when I've done something daft like leave a frame of crystallized honey in the workshop and had a workshop full of bees have we had any significant issues.
I think a lot is down to the base temperament of the bees... if you can inspect them 90% of the time without them flying off the frames and bombarding you (90% of the time most of mine will just sit there) then you have a good basis to work from. I fail to understand why people put up with bad tempered bees.

Base temperament of my bees is in general excellent, I don't tolerate bees that are difficult to work, follow or have traits that are not conducive to being handled. As I said previously, even the very best have their off days and will sting. I would not want to have neighbours afraid to go in their gardens or take the risk of causing harm.
Finding suitable out-apiaries has in my experience never been difficult and I regularly get offered more than I have bees to put on them. There are lots of people with field or large plots of land that are happy to have at least a couple of hives
It also gives me an excuse to dodge lots of household chores, so a win win
S