What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Millet]

A possible explanation is this long extended spell of good weather is giving them less "in hive time" to process all the nectar they are bringing in. A few days of rain does wonders for them moving honey about and ripening it.
I've just had the strange experience of extracting 6 supers of nearly fully capped OSR honey to find water content was 24%!!!!!
Yet earlier uncapped OSR honey was all around 17-18% water....weird.
I can only presume they are rushing things.

That sounds about right to me, even though we have not had any rain most of the ground around here is always wet as it is in a dip bordering swamp land, most if not all of the Hawthorn and other forage is constantly in moist ground, so the warm weather and well watered weeds are producing more than they can cope with by the sound of things... lets all do a rain dance to keep the bees indoors to do a bit of house work..

 

[user 6228]

Installed a split into Artificial Tree Number 7 using the Derekm board technique.

 

[Millet]

Installed a split into Artificial Tree Number 7 using the Derekm board technique.

Have you tried harvesting honey from any of those hives yet or will you not bother.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Millet and mick i was just about to post about this myself. I have 11 frames in my bb and a dummy board they have packed the outer frames 1,2,10, and 11. My new buckfast has layed brood in every other frame. I put a super on two weeks ago hoping they would move some of the honey up but they didnt even touch , last week i put a bb beneath and they are drawing that out on todays inspection still nothing in the super. Im not worried about the super and getting honey this year and perhaps there is still time, i thought it more important for them to have dpace for the queen to lay. But im interested as to what one csn do to get them started in the super or move some of it up. On a different note im 4 weeks into new queen in the hive and its wonderful to see light strippy bees all over the place after my dark mongrels. I can certainly see who are the nurse bees and the flyers at the moment.

Love this hobby. When with them i uneind snd dont think of anything other than the bees.

Take an outside frame of stores out and keep for Autumn. Put it in the freezer. Then put a frame of foundation in the middle of the brood. Repeat in a week

 

[B+.]

Weighed the test colonies.
Max: 83.15 Kg
Min 68.55 Kg
Mean: 74.32 Kg

Quite a bit lower than normal for this time of year

 

[user 6228]

Have you tried harvesting honey from any of those hives yet or will you not bother.

I'm harvesting information about comb construction not honey. There are no frames, no topbars. They wont be opened until next year.

 

[Millet]

I'm harvesting information about comb construction not honey. There are no frames, no topbars. They wont be opened until next year.

Got ya..

 

[Bakerbee]

Thanks ericA will try that.

 

[Beefriendly]

Millet and mick i was just about to post about this myself. I have 11 frames in my bb and a dummy board they have packed the outer frames 1,2,10, and 11. My new buckfast has layed brood in every other frame..

You need another brood box quick and extra supers...Good Buckfast queens (as yours sounds like) need space to lay and the bees they produce need parking space and so on.....so lots and lots of space. They can frighten you with the amount of room they need. And they will frighten you with the amounts of honey they can bring when you get their conditions right.
I think one the most common cause of young Buckfast queens swarming early is due to the beekeeper not providing enough space early enough....Most UK beekeeping books and advice is based on keeping local bees that are generally incapable of filling a single brood box....at least in my local area..
Brother Adam kept his Buckfast in large Dadant sized hives (about 2 x space of National brood box)...he did that for a reason.

 

[Bakerbee]

Thanks beefriendly, yes i put another brood box (so double brood now) under them and they have an empty super on top. Im hoping this is enough st the moment. Im on commercial hives also so a bit more room in there. Does this sound ok?

 

[Beefriendly]

Great...manage their space, it's sometimes not easy to judge. I'd be tempted to move a few frames around...like stick a few brood frames in bottom super move a few un-drawn up and put adjacent to brood frames.......
but minutia...room is important. Got a few colonies myself where I'm trying to figure out why they haven't swarmed yet....jammed like sardine (operator error!!!).

 

[Finman]

Thanks beefriendly, yes i put another brood box (so double brood now) under them and they have an empty super on top. Im hoping this is enough st the moment. Im on commercial hives also so a bit more room in there. Does this sound ok?

Empty super means that colony is not big, but brood tells that it is becoming. Second brood below is good. If something is too much so far is empty super. It takes time that colony fills lower box. It hardly bring any honey.

Set up is good. It teaches you to see, how the hive develops, and how long it takes

 

[Millet]

Empty super means that colony is not big, but brood tells that it is becoming. Second brood below is good. If something is too much so far is empty super. It takes time that colony fills lower box. It hardly bring any honey.

Set up is good. It teaches you to see, how the hive develops, and how long it takes

Perfect explanation,

 

[Bakerbee]

Yes i am beginning to really understand that now as one of my other hives is 3 weeks behind this one in accepting a new queen and its helping greatly to watch how things develop. Thank you all for your wisdom.

 

[Swarm]

Checked two nucs made up last night and transferred the donor queen and what's left of her brood to another nuc, ready to give her away.
Helped my friend to find his buckfast queen who seems intent on swarming. He did an AS last weekend, she was in a box of foundation, on one comb. Five charged cells today and no sign of her. Judging by her performance so far, no great loss. I've that spare queen and another so he won't have to wait for a new queen to start laying.
Got drenched and now I'm home, the sun is coming out.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I requeened a small colony with a new queen a few days ago. They are not happy with her and had made queen cells.i knocked all those down and took all the open brood out. She is still good as are the attendants so trying again. If no luck I might pop her in a push in cage. Fixed a Demarree today.... getting too big to handle with supers on top as well. I’ll put them all back together again next week. Sudden heavy shower in the middle of that one. Boy were they unhappy

 

[colinc]

No attempts seen in the two newly requeened colonies to try to oust the new matriarch. Happy days.


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[madasafish]

Extracted more honey.. 100lbs to date - unheard of at this time..
18 sealed QC in finishers , cunning plan modified again...

Sign up at gate: "Honey for sale" Sold quite a bit in a short time...

Too windy and wet to beebother today..

Edit: marked 5 new queens in beginners' hives I am helping Thur/Fri.

 

[user 6228]

Tidied up a hive/colony that is going to be put in an AT next week... A not very friendly colony... its going to take a bit more protection than usual.

 

[Somerford]

With the help of my two young apprentice Beekeepers (Junior Somerford # 1 and # 2) we spent the day making up nucs for 5 new Danish Breeder queens and running virgin queens into around 15 splits. Considering it was damp and overcast the bees were very calm and not one sting which always makes for happy Junior Beekeepers in my experience !

KR

S