What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Etton]

Keep up to date old chap.. do you mark and clip your virgin Queens by any chance..

ha...re clipping virgin queens. I have marked one virgin this time as a test to see if she makes it back.

 

[Etton]

ha...re clipping virgin queens. I have marked one virgin this time as a test to see if she makes it back.

...and it was blue not yellow so its not the one my dog found.

 

[pargyle]

Splatted a Virgin Queen two days ago in double brood which left them hopelessly Queen less, split them into two and give them half a frame each of eggs from a Island mated Danish Queen hopefully they get too work and make some nice gentle honey monster Queens like the last one Thanks N.
Also went through my other 2018 Danish F1 hive,the clipped marked Queen has vanished, the Queen cell i left in there has emerged but could i hell find the virgin Queen, i did however find six new Queen cells three of which where capped so i knocked the lot down, if i can make these hopelessly Queen less i will carefully cut a Queen cell from the split hives and give them one also.
Its hectic to say the least i have gone from three hives to a possible eight in just under three weeks, one is promised to someone though so thet will free a stand up when one of the five virgins gets laying three of which look mated the way they are fattening up, the lack of swallows seems to have give me 100% mating success up to now.
Cheers
Steve.

He's going to have some seriously gentle honey monster queens in a few weeks time.

Sadly I am deadly serious, i have had just shy of 90lb of honey from the Danish Queen up to now and i have a further four super to extract from them when they are fully capped, with my previous bees i was lucky if i got nine super frames of honey through out the full year, only a fool would pass on the chance of trying to rear more of these gentle honey monsters... so stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

I had one fly of into the the sky last week, on my next inspection she was back in the hive.

Keep up to date old chap.. do you mark and clip your virgin Queens by any chance..

I can't quite keep up with your queening and manipulations ... counted up the queens you have and the colonies and came up one short of a mating flight ...rather assumed one of your clipped queens had escaped and returned.

 

[Millet]

I can't quite keep up with your queening and manipulations ... counted up the queens you have and the colonies and came up one short of a mating flight ...rather assumed one of your clipped queens had escaped and returned.

No.. clipped Queens can not fly into the sky.. i have had a clipped Queen escape mind but i found it on the floor under the hive and it quickly crawled back up the hive stand and back into the hive.. the virgin Queen running around in there has since killed it.. i have in total six virgins waiting to be mated and when i get there on Saturday most of them should be laying if they where successful, i will then clip and mark them does that clear anything up for you.

 

[pargyle]

I had one fly of into the the sky last week, on my next inspection she was back in the hive.

No.. clipped Queens can not fly into the sky.. i have had a clippe d Queen escape mind but i found it on the floor under the hive and it quickly crawled back up the hive stand and back into the hive.. the virgin Queen running around in there has since killed it.. i have in total six virgins waiting to be mated and when i get there on Saturday most of them should be laying if they where successful, i will then clip and mark them does that clear anything up for you.

Not really ... it all sounds a bit chaotic ... which one of the six virgins that have yet to emerge was it that decided to fly off and then come back ?

I think you should change your forum name to Scheherazade ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade

 

[Beefriendly]

I think you should change your forum name to Scheherazade ...

1001 compliments to Millet from you?

 

[Millet]

Not really ... it all sounds a bit chaotic ... which one of the six virgins that have yet to emerge was it that decided to fly off and then come back ?

I think you should change your forum name to Scheherazade ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade

It is not chaotic at all pretty simple really, it should have been seven virgins emerged but now six and another possible three to emerge in around thirteen days give or take, the virgin that flew of is splatted that is the colony i split into two and placed the Keld Brandstrup island mated frame of eggs into each split.
Now go have a cup of tea and find another thread to nit pick at because i can not be arsed with you.

 

[Beefriendly]

To get back on topic...started the introduction of some Mating station Buckfast queens into Nucs that were made up of nurse bees.
Checked some of last weeks introduced open mated queens....All accepted and laying.
Problem's with my own mated F1 queens...only one or two seem to have the got the idea of what they should be doing. Probably impatience on my side....

 

[Erichalfbee]

€135 for a hobby queen?
Crikey!
I’d have to hide that from Stan!

 

[Beefriendly]

€135 for a hobby queen?

Depends how serious you are about your hobby.
You quickly learn not to run scrub cattle on good pasture.
Investment in pedigree pays for a lot of expensive kit (and more queens) downstream.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I suppose so
I’m not that serious. Forage here is hit and miss anyway and there are zillions of offcomers living the “Good Life” so lots of beehives. Look at this year.... what an excellent start then no rain for six weeks with clover burning to a brown stubble and hedgerows wilting in the heat. Usually it rains so much the bees grow flippers. If I was serious I would be on Prozac.

 

[Beefriendly]

I’m not that serious. Forage here is hit and miss anyway .

I'm sure you are very serious about your beekeeping. In my case needing to supplement ones pension tends to make one, perhaps, a little more serious. Plus curiosity about all the different strains...most of which I have kept or worked with.
I used to think the forage in my area was hit and miss....not any more. It's excellent...with the proviso of the right type of bee to take advantage of it.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Decided to take a half day, moved a few more colonies up to the castle and dropped some honey off at their shop, then on the way back called at the Carreg apiary to check on some nucs and do some gentle pottering around in the warm afternoon sunshine.
One hive had the expected ant nursery on the crown board - taking advantage of the heat from the colony to incubate the eggs, they're there every year, and although some eggs end up on the floor when I open up, next inspection they're back and in bigger numbers. I don't know why people get their panties into such a plait about ants - they do no harm to the colony, so I leave them alone.
Noticed a wonderful display of orchids in the shade of the now overgrown track which leads to the furthest fields above the quarry.

 

[pargyle]

find another thread to nit pick at because i can not be arsed with you.

Politeness is the flower of humanity....

 

[user 6228]

Got attacked big time by a very full commercial of bees. We moved them to a new apiary ready to go into an AT and had left them 48hrs to settle down. 48hrs is obviously not long enough as they went mental. I ran knocking off bees as I went. Elaine stayed and continued with the A/S luckily she had double suited just in case. The bees pursued me for 50m
After emptying the last comb, and dumping the group with the queen on the board they were going in but they were very very unhappy with us.Elaine had a cloud of bees around her viel. It was just too difficult to clear up the hive and all the kit with this mass of stinging so and sos. So we went to the pub for hour to let the bees calm down and for us to cool down.
They were very much calmer when we returned, and let us box up the hive and clear up. Got home and bought Elaine a pint. Just reward for efforts on a hot day double suited

Lesson re-learned wait 4 days after disturbing a hive before doing it again... 2 days is not enough.

 

[philipm]

All my bait hives had bees showing interest today .Notice that the Rose Bay Willow herb is just coming into flower.

 

[Beefriendly]

Lesson re-learned wait 4 days after disturbing a hive before doing it again... 2 days is not enough.

Easier to not keep aggressive bees.
Time between "disturbing" makes little difference with aggressive efffers.
I'd have bought her a pint in the pub...not at home

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Got attacked big time by a very full commercial of bees. We moved them to a new apiary ready to go into an AT and had left them 48hrs to settle down. 48hrs is obviously not long enough as they went mental. I ran knocking off bees as I went. Elaine stayed and continued with the A/S luckily she had double suited just in case. The bees pursued me for 50m
After emptying the last comb, and dumping the group with the queen on the board they were going in but they were very very unhappy with us.Elaine had a cloud of bees around her viel. It was just too difficult to clear up the hive and all the kit with this mass of stinging so and sos. So we went to the pub for hour to let the bees calm down and for us to cool down.
They were very much calmer when we returned, and let us box up the hive and clear up. Got home and bought Elaine a pint. Just reward for efforts on a hot day double suited

Lesson re-learned wait 4 days after disturbing a hive before doing it again... 2 days is not enough.

I think I would have been a bit peed off if some clown went and shook swarmed me onto a bedsheet as well!

 

[user 6228]

Easier to not keep aggressive bees.
Time between "disturbing" makes little difference with aggressive efffers.
I'd have bought her a pint in the pub...not at home

It was in a pub, the one across the road.

 

[Beefriendly]

It was in a pub, the one across the road.

Got it...The pub is your home...say no more squire