loving_allsorts
New Bee
I started keeping bees two years ago! I started with a colony of bees which I was told by somebody in my local association (who should have known better) that he knew where they were from, they were not aggressive and good starter bees.
HA!
First thing first, they are the grumpiest meanest bees I've encountered. And boy do they like to swarm. In the first year, I had them in spring, and they swarmed twice (one swarm, one cast).... in the first year.....
By the end of the first year I had two colonies having given away the cast. Looking forwards to the next year when I was hoping for some honey! Well last year wasn't terribly brilliant for anybody to be fair, but mine decided that they would make the most of it..... by swarming again. Both of the colonies swarmed like buggery! I tried looking for queen cells to predict swarming, I inspected them regularly, but they were just rampant swarmers. I got another two colonies (four by the end of last year all together) and past over a few casts to my friend who kept bees. Needless to say, no honey.
As summer closed out last year I figured that I could maybe reduce the swarming activity by putting them onto brood and a half instead of just a brood.
As autumn settled in I had to move them to a piece of farm land which didn't seem to bother them. This year two of the four colonies made it through. In late spring this year the Rape seed field which was ten meters away from the bees flowered like crazy and only died back about two weeks ago.
While it was flowering you'd think the bees would be in harvest mode... not these... they swarmed! Only one colony that I know of and I rehoused it. I boxed them and dropped them into the top of a waiting hive, only they didn't want to go down between the bars regardless of smoke, patience or the cold night drawing in. There was a drawn brood box, and a super of frames on top of that and the bees, half dropped down, the others climbing over each other on top of the bars. I didn't want to flatten them all by putting the crown board down so decided it might be best to put an empty super on top of the supper of frames and put the lid on that.
Well I've been down today to see if I need to put escape crown boards on the two established hives... but I don't need to.... because there is NO HONEY!!! Infact, one of the hives hadn't even started drawing the frames in the super above the queen excluder. The other had drawn only two of the frames. On top of that the swarm I put in last week decided they didn't want to draw out the super frames.... instead they decided they would draw out 5 rows of wild comb from the hive roof!!!!
I am pulling my hair out with these stupid bees (I know, a bad beekeeper always blames his bees). I have read books on books over the last two years and I cannot understand what I am doing wrong.
I think I will have to try requeening. And tomorrow I'm going to have the joy of shaking all the bees down into the supers (that's going to make them less mean and aggressive isn't it!) and cutting out the wild comb (which by the way already are full of grubs!) Que loss of colony this winter!
GGGGGRRRRRRR!
I'm starting to conclude that my queens were mated by drone Wasps!
HA!
First thing first, they are the grumpiest meanest bees I've encountered. And boy do they like to swarm. In the first year, I had them in spring, and they swarmed twice (one swarm, one cast).... in the first year.....
By the end of the first year I had two colonies having given away the cast. Looking forwards to the next year when I was hoping for some honey! Well last year wasn't terribly brilliant for anybody to be fair, but mine decided that they would make the most of it..... by swarming again. Both of the colonies swarmed like buggery! I tried looking for queen cells to predict swarming, I inspected them regularly, but they were just rampant swarmers. I got another two colonies (four by the end of last year all together) and past over a few casts to my friend who kept bees. Needless to say, no honey.
As summer closed out last year I figured that I could maybe reduce the swarming activity by putting them onto brood and a half instead of just a brood.
As autumn settled in I had to move them to a piece of farm land which didn't seem to bother them. This year two of the four colonies made it through. In late spring this year the Rape seed field which was ten meters away from the bees flowered like crazy and only died back about two weeks ago.
While it was flowering you'd think the bees would be in harvest mode... not these... they swarmed! Only one colony that I know of and I rehoused it. I boxed them and dropped them into the top of a waiting hive, only they didn't want to go down between the bars regardless of smoke, patience or the cold night drawing in. There was a drawn brood box, and a super of frames on top of that and the bees, half dropped down, the others climbing over each other on top of the bars. I didn't want to flatten them all by putting the crown board down so decided it might be best to put an empty super on top of the supper of frames and put the lid on that.
Well I've been down today to see if I need to put escape crown boards on the two established hives... but I don't need to.... because there is NO HONEY!!! Infact, one of the hives hadn't even started drawing the frames in the super above the queen excluder. The other had drawn only two of the frames. On top of that the swarm I put in last week decided they didn't want to draw out the super frames.... instead they decided they would draw out 5 rows of wild comb from the hive roof!!!!
I am pulling my hair out with these stupid bees (I know, a bad beekeeper always blames his bees). I have read books on books over the last two years and I cannot understand what I am doing wrong.
I think I will have to try requeening. And tomorrow I'm going to have the joy of shaking all the bees down into the supers (that's going to make them less mean and aggressive isn't it!) and cutting out the wild comb (which by the way already are full of grubs!) Que loss of colony this winter!
GGGGGRRRRRRR!
I'm starting to conclude that my queens were mated by drone Wasps!
Just add it to the list of b......s.
