What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Curly green fingers]

More reason to get in there ASAP, or risk losing a swarm

There was no drones in the hive 2 weeks ago so I'm not really worried about swarming yet but the weathers fair tomorrow. Spare hives ect at the ready.

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[Insy]

the nuc from a Split I did other week had pollen going in today, one can only hope all is well , so tempted to have a look but I'm trying to be patient and not disturb

 

[masterBK]

Clipped the queens in the two colonies I keep in the back garden. Need to go through the colonies in the outapiary tomorrow and clip all the queens I didn't manage to get done last summer.

 

[Curly green fingers]

Inspection this afternoon 7 frames of capped brood no larvae a little bit of drone brood. No queen seen two queen cells with two queens in on the top of the middle frame not capped still in larvae stage but big in the cell what's happened to my old queen? Advice pls...

 

[linoleum bonypart]

Swarmed

 

[viridens]

Swarmed

Recovered?

 

[Noddy]

Found two about to be sealed QC in one of the five hives I checked today, so I performed an artificial swarm on it.

Luckily I am setting up another new out-apiary next week, as I have too many hives in the garden now, so can shift some of them to the new apiary, along with the last two over-wintered poly nucs that will be transferred into hives.

That will leave me with only one spare hive now, but also four spare brood boxes - when is the next sale lol.

 

[Curly green fingers]

Would it be an idea to remove the smaller cell there right next to each other.? Or leave them be there was other cells that were empty.?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Inspection this afternoon 7 frames of capped brood no larvae a little bit of drone brood. No queen seen two queen cells with two queens in on the top of the middle frame not capped still in larvae stage but big in the cell what's happened to my old queen? Advice pls...

Swarmed.
Told you.
If the QC's are open, keep the best and take the other down. Go back in in a few days time and remove any other EQC's they've made.

 

[JWF]

First inspection for two weeks, as it was only 5C last weekend.

Hive 1 still building up slower than the others, so donated a frame of brood from another hive which is bursting at the seams
Hive 2 had a patchy brood pattern at the last inspection, and nowcappears to have a drone laying queen, so I'll shake them out at some point in the near future.
Hive 3 is a huge colony on 14*12 had four or five unsealed queen cells, so I carried out an artificial swarm. Couldn't find the (unmarked) queen despite moving the brood box to a new location, so took a punt and moved a couple of frames of brood over to the new hive and will take another look in a couple of days. This hive had three nearly full supers on so if I hadn't done an AS they would have had another one put on. They were quite lively!
Hive 4 is another huge colony, with some Queen cups but no larvae yet. I've no doubt I'll need to AS this colony in the next couple of weeks. Another super added, taking them to three in total.
Hive 5 is the new colony from the AS, loads of brood and house bees, and one super.

Of course, hive three may have swarmed already, which would explain why the queen was hard to find - an inspection in a couple of days should confirm if that has happened.

Plenty of drones in the big hives, but didn't see any signs of them flying yet. Won't be long though!

 

[Wingy]

Spent the morning with Kevin, my mentor, helped set up the apiary ready to start grafting next week. Looking forward to the season ahead.

 

[madasafish]

Finished off inspections I started yesterday - or was it the day before that? My records say yesterday but it feels like weeks ago,

Anyway, I was narked to be unable to find the unmarked queen in my most productive hive (last year 93lbs) yesterday - late 2017 superscedure = going like the clappers this year far more active than others (Carni ancestry+Buckfast + AMM +wdik) so I decided to search properly at 2.30pm in full flow placing checked frames into a polynuc to reduce space for Q to hide in . Blow me, find her on third frame ,marked and assembled in 5 mins.. What a waste of time trunding out a polynuc. Two supers for the next 3 days of heat..

Lovely barbecue beside pond watching bees coming and going..

Even the mating mini nuc which became Q- after uniting has a capped QC.. lots of drones so mating will not be an issue.. (yes I know she'll be a small queen but keeps mini nuc alive until I can requeen her with a proper one)

 

[Millet]

Well that was an eventful first inspection of the year, we have a strong cherry flow on and also blackthorn another week and i dare say the lot of them would have prepared to swarm.

Yellow Romanian Buckfast on brood + half both boxes jam packed with brood and stores very little room left for anything. she took some finding as the yellow mark had gone, found her and marked her and also clipped her, snapped a lug on a frame as both boxes/frames where stuck together with drone comb and brood.

White F1 Danish Buckfast on brood + half was the same again with very little space for the Queen to lay, she took some finding but i got her in the end and clipped her, all them frames where stuck together with drone comb and brood, i also changed the floor for a under floor entrance.

F2 Danish Buckfast, she was the only Queen with any space left 5 frames in total as i over wintered her on double brood, still everything was stuck together again with drone comb and brood.

It took me a couple of hours to sort the mess out and give them the boxes they needed but they are all sorted now, BF did warn me how much these Queens can lay but i never expected how much on the north east coast, 3x as much as the last local mongrel Queen i had and not once did they try to kill me.. Happy day's..

 

[Beefriendly]

Rub of the green Millet and they shouldn't (famous last words) swarm...this year at least. Have you got enough supers?

 

[Millet]

Rub of the green Millet and they shouldn't (famous last words) swarm...this year at least. Have you got enough supers?

They should not swarm now i hope as i gave them another brood box where needed and a super above, i have 8 supers left but if they keep going the way they are i might need more and to think the thistle and bramble will be flowering after this flow, i think i best order some more storage buckets also..

 

[Curly green fingers]

Swarmed.
Told you.
If the QC's are open, keep the best and take the other down. Go back in in a few days time and remove any other EQC's they've made.

You did learning curve . if the QC doesn't come good they will try raising another?

 

[colinc]

sounds awesome!

 

[Goran]

1st barrels of honey of this season .. stored..
I am " thrilled" - in correlation: better to have something I can't sell ( for endurable price) than to have nothing to sell.. At least honey is lovely..

Seems this year I will share a lot of honey around..

 

[Curly green fingers]

sounds awesome!

??

 

[Zante]

Back from a business trip to London I'm curious to see what a week of acacia has done to my hive. The weather hasn't been the best, but they've had plenty of flying time.
I guess this will help me decide whether they're doing well or they need a new queen.

Since Monday its bank holiday in the U.K., and not here (and working for a London company I follow the uk holidays) I'll inspect tomorrow and report to my advisor at the LBS on Monday. Need to go to the local junk dealer as there seem to be some cheap trellises and it's on the way there.