What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Angry_Mob]

Big thorax, reddish legs, but very small length to abdomen. If she is already a supersedure queen? This late in the season you may have better alternatives?

The other thing that made me thought she was a queen is her colouring. The bands are black with a mahogany tinge between them. Her worker sisters are black with a tan tinge. (Mixed colony here)

No evidence from that pic.

The front of the nuc was covered in bees, looks like this bee landed on the top of the post.

Not a queen.
Queens have a definite cleft in the thorax and there isn’t one in the picture

By cleft do you mean a split along the rear of the thorax? I have uploaded a picture from a different angle and enlarged it.

It was a quote. However, supersedure is often instigated because the queen is lacking in some respect, so not a very good starting point for succession? Also, not all QCs are equal. I am sure we can all agree to that. Keeping the QC warm is also important in making the queen develop property.

The current queen has tried to swarm twice this season, thread was here: https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=42889

 

[Erichalfbee]

By cleft do you mean a split along the rear of the thorax? I have uploaded a picture from a different angle and enlarged it.
View attachment 16003

No
Longitudinally, from front to back

 

[Angry_Mob]

Like so? I get what you mean now.

 

[simonforeman]

What I was trying to say in my previous post was.... leave the hives as they are now as normal and rather than take out the entrance reducer to push in the vaporizer with the OA crystals risking cooking the queen, can I just seal the entrance and vape from under the hive so the gas go's through the omf up into the hive without too much effort?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

What I was trying to say in my previous post was.... leave the hives as they are now as normal and rather than take out the entrance reducer to push in the vaporizer with the OA crystals risking cooking the queen, can I just seal the entrance and vape from under the hive so the gas go's through the omf up into the hive without too much effort?

I vape all my hives through the OMF (pretty hard to get the varrox through an underfloor entrance ) just got a steel plate instead of the inspection board - no need to close the entrance really, it doesn't bother the bees much.

 

[simonforeman]

Thanks Jenks for the reply....thought it would be ok....

 

[Erichalfbee]

What I was trying to say in my previous post was.... leave the hives as they are now as normal and rather than take out the entrance reducer to push in the vaporizer with the OA crystals risking cooking the queen, can I just seal the entrance and vape from under the hive so the gas go's through the omf up into the hive without too much effort?

Phew!

 

[victor meldrew]

Do you mean stack the hives on one floor?

I hope you don’t !

So do I [emoji15]


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[simonforeman]

Do you mean stack the hives on one floor?
I hope you don’t !

I know I'm a newbie beek but even I know not to do this....

 

[Millet]

Did the underdeveloped queens emerge from a QC?

I hope so... ...

 

[Millet]

The other thing that made me thought she was a queen is her colouring. The bands are black with a mahogany tinge between them. Her worker sisters are black with a tan tinge. (Mixed colony here)


The front of the nuc was covered in bees, looks like this bee landed on the top of the post.



By cleft do you mean a split along the rear of the thorax? I have uploaded a picture from a different angle and enlarged it.
View attachment 16003



The current queen has tried to swarm twice this season, thread was here: https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=42889

Going by the image where are the front legs... ? .

 

[Wingy]

Over the last couple of weeks the daughters hive in the garden has been battling the wasps, but being a good strong colony there has been no issues. Now all the plums and figs have been picked the wasps seem to have disappeared. Yesterday watching the bees coming back in the poring rain and landing on the wet hive front didn’t look good so today I made a reduced entrance block (like the tunnel ones Millet uses) this just sits in front of the standard entrance block. I then made a rain shelter porch to stop the wet area on the front. Bees seem ok with it and at least they can take off and land in the dry.

 

[simonforeman]

You forgot the mat to wipe their feet on before going in.....

 

[B+.]

Checked/fed a load of nucs - expecting 2 C-VSH line (NL-55-2-4-2017 x DE-6-198-35-2016) queens to arrive from the Netherlands tomorrow so I made sure the nucs were ready for them. These will be overwintered and retested during 2019

 

[JWF]

You forgot the mat to wipe their feet on before going in.....

Mine prefer umbrellas

 

[Wingy]

You forgot the mat to wipe their feet on before going in.....

Funny enough that’s what the daughter said.

 

[JWF]

Removed the last of the supers (probably, because there's still nectar coming in from somewhere).

Checked through a couple of the hives to make sure they were queen right, only to find one still has nearly 9 full frames of BIAS (on 14*12), though there are some stores in the shoulders. There's no honey in the super though! They came from a split in June and have a bought in 2018 queen, so they seem to have focussed on building up rather than creating a surplus for me

 

[Swarm]

Removed seven supers and put clearer boards under another four. Had a quick check on the state of each colony, 48hr natural drop produced figures in single numbers. My Ceredigion queen who heads the most numerous colony, still shows a zero drop.
Split my Amm on treble brood and shared the comb among the nucs. All colonies are looking strong and well provisioned.
Probably start OAV next week

 

[Hachi]

Moving the nuc to one of my out apiaries. Was watching to day and saw, even with a reduced entrance a wasp going in and when checking feed, noticed a wasp on the top bar that got the hive tool medley. Reduced entrance to one bee space.

 

[Hachi]

Also noticed a woodpecker had had a pop at the BB I removed from the Dbl brood yesterday when prepping it for storage earlier so will need to fill that. What a year!!!!