What did you do in the Apiary today?

[The Poot in Somerset]

Checked through the hives - mainly the supers.
Found one colony has been gorging on honey through the wet weather, whilst others have fully capped theirs.
Little forage about at present.
One nuc had lots of capped brood but very little stores - almost nothing.
Added a brood frame of honey after scoring the cappings. Will feed, but have promised them to a fellow beekeeper, who should be collecting on Tuesday.

 

[simonforeman]

Checked all hives today.... All queen right and still big colonies. No signs of any of the queens slowing up yet even tho theres not allot of forage about.

So barring any late drama it looks like I will be going into Autumn/ Winter with 8 full strong hives and a very strong nuc that may get into a full hive end of the month.

 

[wightbees]

Ivy is coming in here, weather a bit mixed but they working hard. Made up Nucs and will be grafting again this week. Trying to make as many Nucs as possible to overwinter.

 

[Walrus]

Took supers off hives, treated for varroa, fed the odd nuc. The fume board/blower combo worked pretty well.

 

[Bear]

Took 2 frames off that had queen cells and added them to a queenless neuc

 

[manek]

Went to sort out solid cover boards and clearer boards for taking the supers off.

I disturbed one of my stored brood boxes. Out flew a bunch of wax moth. Inside was a disgusting, unsalvageable mess. The larvae had also made inroads into a number of other bits of kit, including a poly hive, drilling holes into the plastic and burying themselves deep inside.

So a joyful afternoon was spent burning, scorching, washing, scraping, and bagging up the crud left behind.

Harvest starts tomorrow...

 

[thorn]

I went to the supplier and bought three cases of jars and lids, then when I got home streilised two of the cases. What a boring job.

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

Took off penultimate super, extracted straight from the hive - so much easier than after storage
Had quite a dance with an unbalanced extractor...
Melted first batch of wax in newly acquired solar melter.

 

[simonforeman]

All out apiary hives (5) have now had Apivar strips added to them. All strong and Q+

 

[nantmoel]

I removed the 'Tabs' off two Keld Island mated queens that have been in nucs for a few days, fingers crossed.

 

[masterBK]

Found another current years but failing queen. Have had more young queens becomng drone layers this year than ever before. Good job I have a replacement queen in a nucleus.

 

[Angry_Mob]

Busy few evenings.

Thursday night made up 5 splits and did some emergency feeding on nucs that were getting light. Friday night queened a Q- hive, removed few supers, made up 80L syrup and fed more hives. This evening removed last of the supers, all hives now have feeders and getting fed.

Collected samples for the national honey monitoring scheme.

Amount of wasps was colossal today. May begin treatment tomorrow or spin last few supers, all of which are fairly light.

 

[Swarm]

Watched my gorgeous new queen walking on the comb.
Very happy

 

[thedozzer]

Up bright & early to inspect before it got too warm finished by 10am, all present & correct, still lots of BIAS and the QC in one hive has now hatched, but saw old Q happy wandering over frames so we will see what develops there, nearly broke my back trying to lift 3 supers off thinking they they would have cleaned the extracted ones, but they have made a good go of filling them again!
will remove all next week and start Apivar, but not if they are still flying like there is a flow on, but no idea what!

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

Vaped.
Watched drones being evicted / murdered -thought my bees were gentle!!
Painted varroa boards white again.

 

[enrico]

Vaped.
Watched drones being evicted / murdered -thought my bees were gentle!!
Painted varroa boards white again.

On the levels we are still in midsummer. Loads of brood do no vaping yet! Had a tiny amount of rain over the last three months. Desperate for rain!
E

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

On the levels we are still in midsummer. Loads of brood do no vaping yet! Had a tiny amount of rain over the last three months. Desperate for rain!
E

The trouble with the levels is when you do get rain YOU GET RAIN....

 

[enrico]

The trouble with the levels is when you do get rain YOU GET RAIN....

I think what happens is it rains on the hills surrounding us and we get the water! Waiting for be sea levels to rise. I will be on the coast then!!!!!

 

[B+.]

I collected a frame of sealed brood from each of the 2 highest scoring hygienic colonies [NL-55-35-18-2018 scored 96% and NL-55-35-16-2018 scored 100% - both are full-sibs).
I'm also seeing good results in the VSH test with lots of non-reproducing varroa or even dead foundress mites in the cell. The varroa seem to be having a hard time of it. No Chemicals. No treatments of any sort!
That is why we use high hygiene as a pre-selector for colonies that will be tested for VSH! The results are much more likely to be favourable!

 

[Beefriendly]

I'm also seeing good results in the VSH test with lots of non-reproducing varroa or even dead foundress mites in the cell. The varroa seem to be having a hard time of it. No Chemicals. No treatments of any sort!

Availability of these bees to normal/amateur beekeeper?
(I know ....usual question)
Still relevant me thinks.