What did you do in the Apiary today?

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Cell punched 10 cells from my most prolific (honeywise) queen - also very docile..

My prior QR attempt was using Nicot which was much more successful than my cell punching (9 out of 16)..
My problem with CP is my eyes will not focus very well at short distances - despite varifocals.. (the jobs of old age:) So determining a young larva is basically looking for a small pool of royal jelly...


Our vegetable garden and raspberry cane posts are adorned with mini nucs...rather colourful...
 
DASH 3 year re-certification

Actually, I'm sure it's been 4 years since I did the original certification, but, I had a visit from Perter Folge (seasonal bee inspector) today. He checked 3 of my apiaries and was very happy with what he saw. Thats it for another 3 years :)
 
Swarm arrived into a bait hive, I just got to the site, when the last were going inside! Hopefully this one will remain, and not abscond!
 
Did an inspection of all colonies - bit of a mixed bag.

3 colonies really strong
2 colonies are showing a crap brood pattern and look to be superseding
2 are building up after a split
1 nuc that started out titchy is building up nicely - I actually shook them out of their BB but when they clustered round their queen I found I had a heart and let them walk into a nuc :)


I think there's a bit of uniting to be done!

Oh - and there's a bit of a flow on but not massive at the moment, hopefully this hot weather might get things started :)
 
I checked on a colony that lots their queen early may. I gave them a frame with queen cells and let them get on with it. 6 weeks later all looking good. Plenty of healthy brood . My biggest hives are capping plenty of honey, not enough yet to warrant another harvest but nice and runny so happy to let them keep on filling.
All good in fact. Terrific weather with almost 18 hour days of activity. Who needs winter!
 
One hive has now moved up a gear. Last week they were lethargic and throwing out brood. Gave them some frames of nectar and pollen and they are now bringing in plenty of nectar, there is a flow on. Another hive just covered me head to toe and 8 stings to my right arm. Now markedfor requeening.
 
Second queen catch of the season today. 131/160 harvested. Nice looking queens. Better than last Tuesday with 109/160...queenless, virgin hatched. Hoping the weather has now turned around.

It is what it is, and on we go.
 
Low queen yield early in the season will give heartburn for sure.

I'm only doing a few dozen queens but have had yield of 3 out of 15 from one round of cells. It is a lot better now, I'm getting about 3 out of 4 or a tad better.

I'm using very strong hives as cell builders. Having to feed as the spring flow is over here.
 
Ghastly experience!:
Last year a new arrival in the village asked me to look at a WBC in his garden, with bees, that was included in the house purchase and which he was keen to adopt. The colony was in good heart. I advised him to attend a theory course, offered to be his mentor, and gave him T's catalogue with recommendations. I heard no more.
Yesterday he asked me to look again; he thought the bees had disappeared over winter but had now reappeared.
On inspection only a few bees were emerging from a small gap in the hive entrance otherwise blocked with dross. Opening the hive revealed gross destruction of the combs and the frames festooned with wax moth larvae and cocoons. There was a patch of brood in a piece of comb the size of a tea-plate. A large pile of dross on the hive floor.
A most terrible sight.
Fortunately he agreed with my suggestion: we moved the boxes to a safe place, applied petrol and applied a lit taper.
He is left with a WBC shell with closed entrance to look pretty in his garden!
 
Horrible. Have had a hive completely devastated by wasps a few years ago, and that was not nice to see. A few years ago a colleague we both used to work with announced he was giving up beekeeping. He was the one that sparked my interest in bees in the first place.
Asked me if I would like his old kit. Mainly two WBC's. Collected them with a mate in his Range Rover, which was chocker. The hives were in a terrible state, with a lot of wax moth tunnels, and a fair bit of rot etc. . My mate was a keen woodworker. We had to dump some stuff, but both managed to get two serviceable hives, one each, after quite a lot of repairing.
I still work the WBC but find it a bit of a faff, just keep it going out of interest.
 
I wandered through my mating apiary last night and saw the front of one of my mating nucs covered in bees.
Having seen this before, I investigated further....sure enough, there were two queens (47 & 58) right next to each other on the same comb. No fighting - just getting on with their own business inspecting cells.
I caught 47 and put her back in her own nuc and brushed the bees from the outside of nuc 58 back into 47. I suspect that she got lost on a mating flight and, no doubt, I'll see eggs in 47 very soon.
 
Amari said:
Ghastly experience!:
Last year a new arrival in the village asked me to look at a WBC in his garden, with bees, that was included in the house purchase and which he was keen to adopt. The colony was in good heart. I advised him to attend a theory course, offered to be his mentor, and gave him T's catalogue with recommendations. I heard no more.
Yesterday he asked me to look again; he thought the bees had disappeared over winter but had now reappeared.
On inspection only a few bees were emerging from a small gap in the hive entrance otherwise blocked with dross. Opening the hive revealed gross destruction of the combs and the frames festooned with wax moth larvae and cocoons. There was a patch of brood in a piece of comb the size of a tea-plate. A large pile of dross on the hive floor.
A most terrible sight.
Fortunately he agreed with my suggestion: we moved the boxes to a safe place, applied petrol and applied a lit taper.
He is left with a WBC shell with closed entrance to look pretty in his garden!
Click to expand...

This actually choked me up a bit, not a decision I would want to make.:(
 
3 hours in the beesuit in this heat and I'm thinking work is easier than this
Went through 10 colonies
Found one queen in a nuc so marked her ,all other nucs doing well
20+queen cells in one colony so A/S them,see how pagden works out this year
Picked 2 colonies to bring to the field of beans in the morning ,flowers just starting to show
 
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