What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Erichalfbee]

Why, thank you, Colin
I'm sure it will be fine......you'll have to report back

 

[madasafish]

I planned to watch the rain.....but hey ho it never materialised despite huge swathes of blue over most of Wales on the BBC weather last night.
Nothing to do in apiary till Friday when suitably armoured I have to go into hellish hive AS. No help as poor Stan had a hernia op today and is now lounging on the sofa full of morphine.....poor lamb ......

You are working Stan too hard!

Hope he gets well quickly..

 

[Millet]

I planned to watch the rain.....but hey ho it never materialised despite huge swathes of blue over most of Wales on the BBC weather last night.
Nothing to do in apiary till Friday when suitably armoured I have to go into hellish hive AS. No help as poor Stan had a hernia op today and is now lounging on the sofa full of morphine.....poor lamb ......

That last Bait hive in a tree sure looked a good lump, so shame on you for giving Stan a Hernia, Just messing by the way and hope all is good.

 

[Somerford]

Fed all the swarms and nucs. Collected 3 more swarms - two I suspect are with virgin queens as they had begun comb building but no sign of eggs just honey.

Been offered a new apiary that is on organic beans, OSR, wheat rotation with unimproved grassland on the slopes

Plenty to keep me busy !

Honey comes off the hives this Friday - busy weekend extracting

KR

Somerford

 

[Helen]

Went to pick up a swarm. Lady said it was as big as 2 footballs. Spent a little while first getting a new bb sorted out with new frames.

Arrived ready to tackle said huge swarm. And it was a titchy one. Size of a small melon. Oh well. Picked it up, and have now passed it on to someone looking for a swarm for a new hive.

 

[B+.]

Queens emerging in the incubator so marking and introducing virgins. This batch will be open mated so they're not going to be shut in.

 

[madasafish]

Inspected all hives. Only 1 QC- just started - destroyed. Added supers to 2 hives now on three each.
Put Nicot cage in breeder hive to be cleaned.
Added BIAS to starter/raiser (Cloake Board) hive - which is queenless It's on two jumbo Lang brood boxes so quite large - and bad tempered (gloves for them). 5 ?6 QCs capped in top-(cell punched).
Inspected swarm which arrived and took up residence last week. Larvae seen.


Then cut grass round hives after a suitable break .

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Started harvest, looks quite a reasonable quantity. Would have been huge but a lot of crystallisation - I will have to review my dictum of max six weeks in the comb for OSR, presuming the cold weather didn't help.

 

[JohnRB]

Inspected the swarm I hived on Sunday. They have fully drawn 6 frames of foundation, but no eggs. Have started to store nectar and pollen.. Wondering if queenless or have a virgin Queen that's yet to go out on her mating flights. Bees very calm and were happy to stay in the hive on Sunday so hoping for the latter

 

[Tremyfro]

I planned to watch the rain.....but hey ho it never materialised despite huge swathes of blue over most of Wales on the BBC weather last night.
Nothing to do in apiary till Friday when suitably armoured I have to go into hellish hive AS. No help as poor Stan had a hernia op today and is now lounging on the sofa full of morphine.....poor lamb ......

We had a beautiful day ...sunny and warmish. So did our belated inspections...all was well....except for dilemma with the nuc...but with excellent advice now sorted. So sorry to hear Stan is immobilised...we send lots of good wishes for a speedy recovery.
Wear two suits and stand no nonsense from them...good luck...see you on the other side....

 

[Anduril]

Checked my strongest hive, which is on double 14x12's and 4 supers. I now have 3 heavy supers nearly capped and the 4th is half full. The brood boxes are boiling over with bees. Will be queen rearing from this hive.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Checked three of the Demarrees at the home apiary - QC's coming along nicely - apart from the one colony I really wanted some nucs off! ah well, plenty of time hopefully when the fourth super goes on...

 

[Tonyatcwfarm]

Bit of a flow going on here,think it must've the hawthorn,hopefully it keeps going for a while
All bait hives quiet
TransPlanted a 100 or so seedlings of borage around the edge of the fields beside theapiary
Took delivery of a new polyhive and also a staple/ nail gun combo plus compressor,hope to knock up a few frames with it in the morning

 

[Barbarian]

No joy with swarms.

Prime swarm still hanging since Tuesday. Too high in a tree in the apiary.

Called to a swarm around an alarm bell. Would need ladder ... not for me. Tried bucket on a pole but Q must have been in the recess between top of alarm and roof edging board.

 

[Barbarian]

No joy with swarms.

Prime swarm still hanging since Tuesday. Too high in a tree in the apiary.

Called to a swarm around an alarm bell. Would need ladder ... not for me. Tried bucket on a pole but Q must have been in the recess between top of alarm and roof edging board.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

No joy with swarms.

Prime swarm still hanging since Tuesday. Too high in a tree in the apiary.

Called to a swarm around an alarm bell. Would need ladder ... not for me. Tried bucket on a pole but Q must have been in the recess between top of alarm and roof edging board.

The idea of BBKA/ insurance height restrictions preventing swarm collection seems to be farcical to me. OK some beekeepers have no head for heights but most are unaffected.
An alarm bell suggests a public building so I'd be suggesting the owners provide/hire a workmans lift if it's warranted.

 

[Fusion_power]

A day and a half ago, I put 11 queen cells into the incubator. This morning I have 10 nice looking queens. One cell appears to be mature but no queen yet. These queen cells were very well developed with lots of white wax. The mother is a Buckfast queen purchased last year. I'm taking them to an apiary 7 miles east that has 8 colonies of mite resistant bees for mating. The long term goal is to improve honey production and reduce swarming tendency in a mite resistant background. I'll have to watch mite counts on these first cross queens. The Buckfast mother queen is from Fergusons in Canada and has been selected for hygienic behavior.

The next round of queens will be raised from a mite resistant queen hatched in 2015 that made a very good honey crop the last 2 years. They did not swarm either year. Management on my part was to give them 2 1/2 square Dadant boxes for brood and honey storage.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Looked into hot hive AS done 5 days ago. Queen still there and two frames being drawn...eggs in every drawn cell. Not as nasty as they have been but to be expected as they are smaller. One sheet of foundation has had all the wax stripped around each crimped wire......I might have to put an elastic band round it. I hope they don't do that with all the frames
The other half was to be re-queened with a new Buckie but the nuc I made up dispatched her and are raising their own queen so I will take some eggs from a nice hive, knock all the QCs down on Sunday and let them raise a queen from eggs I choose.

 

[B+.]

I have agreed to supply 3 cells per week to Rothamstead Research (https://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/) where the queens will emerge and be tracked to find DCAs. The first 3 cells were picked up this morning

 

[Erichalfbee]

Wonderful
What fascinating research!