North Gales

[Busy Bee]

Has anybody's bees been out much?

I have not seen my bees for days, there is no doubt they are confined to hive, I have stopped feeding them but will have to start again. I have not been able to open the hive yet as the temp is about 6-10C to cold for this. Today the wind felt like -1C, although bright enough with long spells of sunshine

Has anyone got the same problem, I don't know what state the hive until 1st inspection.

Regards


Busy Bee

 

[jimbeekeeper]

Has anybody's bees been out much?

Yes

I have not seen my bees for days, there is no doubt they are confined to hive, I have stopped feeding them but will have to start again.

Why stop feeding when you know they confined to hive?

I don't know what state the hive until 1st inspection.

Are you saying you have not inspected this year? So again how do you know to start feeding to stop feeding?

Weight of the hive might not be a good test if honey has granulated and bees will not move over to take it.

 

[Busy Bee]

Yes



Why stop feeding when you know they confined to hive?



Are you saying you have not inspected this year? So again how do you know to start feeding to stop feeding?

Weight of the hive might not be a good test if honey has granulated and bees will not move over to take it.

Last week its was around 15-17C and they were working very well but with me at work I can't get to inspecting them but this week the weather turned nasty and wintery and bees stopped flying. So to keep the stores up I have started feeding them again. Is this correct? As regard weight one person could not lift the hive.

Busy Bee

 

[Hivemaker.]

BB sounds to me from your description they have plenty of stores,and the weather is hopefully due to get warmer next week,so i would not worry too much.

 

[Busy Bee]

Hi Hivemaker

Well I have only given them around 1 pint of syrup to tied them over as I feel they have already built up stores and I don't really want to set them back. Looking forward a bit of better weather.

Regard


Busy Bee

 

[BKF Admin]

Do you need to try and lift the hive ?
I just heft the back of mine about 3 inches to get a feel for the weight.

 

[FenBee]

My bees are busy working, even in the bad windy weather yesterday, they were out foraging and there were about 30+ around the pond that I made for them recently. I have placed a few old branches in the pond and I noticed quite a lot of the bees were busy working on what looked like dead fungus? I guess they are looking for minerals, but I have no idea, they wood is old and is roughly 2" diameter hawthorn, no resin.

I am not sure if I have done the right thing but when it was warm a couple of weeks ago, I placed a super without the queen excluder of top of the brood box, as the brood box looked to be quite packed and was very heavy when lifted. Then I placed another super on top, with the queen excluder in between. As I say the bees are busy, so I guess they are OK with the set up at the moment

I have bought, a couple of weeks ago a couple of the OSB hives and was think of changing over to using them, we shall see!

 

[Busy Bee]

Do you need to try and lift the hive ?
I just heft the back of mine about 3 inches to get a feel for the weight.

The problem with this is inexperience it would take a while to get the "feel" for a hive. At present I would not know what is lite or heavy but i can tell you one man could'nt lift the brood chamber. (I lift 6' long 9" deep concrete lintels on a regular basis so I can tell you one man could'nt lift the brood, I could only lift it if I got really bullish about lifting).

Busy Bee

 

[Hivemaker.]

BB how many box's have your bee's got,is this just single brood box? Standard national brood box with every frame full of honey,no brood, would be around 61lb. In the spring if the hives are very heavy,i'm usually a bit concerned about them.

 

[Busy Bee]

Yes standard Brood box, with all the frames etc. I have'nt opened the brood chamber yet so i don't know if the frames are full or not. But I can tell you the Bees work away no problem, if the weather was right. There seems to be a good number of bees coming and going. You have something on your mind Hivemaker, that the brood could be to heavy.

Busy Bee

 

[Hivemaker.]

Yes BB too much stores,not enough bee's perhaps,good sign when they are getting lighter. With the weight you describe there cannot be much room in there for brood. you should be able to lift them quite easily at this time of year,i use brood box's as supers and have no probs lifting and loading them,when full, hopefully.