What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Swarm]

Of course and the frames.

 

[madasafish]

Three days ago, I stacked all my empty nucs plus drawn comb neatly on North side of house.
Yesterday am noticed some bees investigating gaps - home made celotex and wood do not fit well together.

Yeserday at 7.15pm , I was watering plants near hives.. all was normal.. 25C - hottest day of year.

Went inside house. At 7.30pm neighbour rang - "bees are swarming". Went oustide.
Swarm entering nuc box. Bad tempered stung me twice.

What have I done wrong? I had inspected two days previous and found no QCs or swarming in any of my 11 nucs/hives.


Quick check this am: all my hives had NO Qcs.. swarm were very black - mine are brown - it was a swarm from someone else..Bad tempered so and sos..


Rearranged from 4 x 5 frame nucs to two.. and left them.

One to requeen.

No idea where they came from but allotment 1.5 miles away has bees fitting that description and have swarmed in last week..(found on this pm's inspection).

Net gain - for a change - with no work .. But a few stings.

 

[DaveG23]

Very quick inspection of the hives in my garden, made sure everything was strapped and weighed down. Storm has now started, only a yellow warning so not too bad for the west coast of Ireland but potential gusts of 110 km/h

At least this year the sycamore has had a chance to flower, the last 2 years one of these storms combined with a cold snap burned all the leaves, even my hawthorn ended up with black leaves last year.

Suspect my spuds will take a hammering.

At least my bees seem to be building up nicely, some nectar coming in for the last few weeks which seems a bit earlier than last year. Don't think I saw much nectar coming in until the last week of May last year.

 

[beeboybee]

Rubbish Day....

No Luck with the CupKit Experiment..... the Queenless colony did not like the eggs and no action.

then to really make it a bad day....

in process of requesting another hive - Queenless for 7 days then Queen in cage for 48hrs as was a nasty hive and didn't want to take any chances..

went in hive to remove plastic tab so bees could access fondant and release queen.

moved the frames apart and in doing so split open the queen cage. then quick as a flash queen was gone....

Rubbish!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

No Luck with the CupKit Experiment..... the Queenless colony did not like the eggs and no action.

then to really make it a bad day....

in process of requesting another hive - Queenless for 7 days then Queen in cage for 48hrs as was a nasty hive and didn't want to take any chances..

went in hive to remove plastic tab so bees could access fondant and release queen.

moved the frames apart and in doing so split open the queen cage. then quick as a flash queen was gone....

Rubbish!

I wouldn't have left them queenless for more than seven minutes before putting the new caged queen in, then left the candy cap in for even longer than 48 hours if they were still tetchy

 

[user 6127]

Yesterday and last night I picked up 13 hives from a retiring keeper. They haven't been inspected in about 2 years.

Took all the empty hives and supers etc during the day, and went back at night for the colonies. Shame as some of the empty ones had dead bees all over the floor. Turned out there was only 2 colonies left in all the hives. One small, but strong in a brood and super. The other was in a brood and 2 supers.

Gave them a quick inspection yesterday on their old site, and they are both packed, and obviously not opened in a long time. They were a bugger to open up. The bigger hive bees were being a nightmare. Dive bombing and stinging me like mad.

After the move, I left them for most of the day, and went up about 4pm today and gave them a better look over. Things like the entrance blocks were still in place, with small openings, and the wooden bit that goes below the mesh floor (don't know what its called). So I took these both out to cool the hive a bit.

The big hive are still nasty. They chased me along back to the car, and then my workshop, going over 60 feet away and they were still after me. Not sure what I will do with them yet, but they have more than enough brood for a split, and I think I'll be re-queening.

 

[Goran]

Cool cat and bees.

This little fella was today whole afternoon few meters from me at the apiary.. He had luck cause there is some flow and bees are calm.. He is bit annoying cause he walks right into legs and I have to care about him beside of bees and not to hit him or step him with foot.. Spoiled completely..

 

[Jimmy]

The bigger hive bees were being a nightmare. Dive bombing and stinging me like mad.



The big hive are still nasty. They chased me along back to the car, and then my workshop, going over 60 feet away and they were still after me. Not sure what I will do with them yet, but they have more than enough brood for a split, and I think I'll be re-queening.

A split and requeening sounds good. Some of my bees were unusually protective today (no stings, just assertively inquisitive and some following) and the majority of brood frames were dry when I shook the bees off them. There is a definite nectar gap here but hopefully when the bramble starts to flower they'll calm down

 

[GuyNir]

Not sure what I will do with them yet, but they have more than enough brood for a split, and I think I'll be re-queening.

I’d definitely re-queen.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Over to Joe Mc Ganns place (although he's still locked down in Liverpool as he was up there filming Brookside when it all blew up), checked the Demarree from a fortnight ago - queen laying like a train and the bees struggling to keep up building new comb so I popped some more drawn frames I had spare in the truck. A queen I suspected the bees were superseding (4 QC's), so I popped her in a nuc has vanished and in her place is one lovely supersedure cell.
At my cousin's farm took a nuc of a Demarre I had going with a very prolific and cool queen, checked the other colonies - one being originally on the 'hive from hell' leyline up at the range is now cool and laid back!!
There was another hive up there which I should have given up on, not much brood compared to the rest back in early April and a week later, queen disappeared, I failed to find a QC but being a decent sized colony I left them to their own devices as I couldn't be bothered to do much else.....Now has two frames of brood, much like one similar at Brynmair, so blue marking pen now out of the box and in pocket - looks very much like two very early supersedures.

 

[viridens]

Definitely an early gap here. I see they are eating through full boxes I had planned to harvest. Still plenty of pollen coming in.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Yesterday and last night I picked up 13 hives from a retiring keeper. They haven't been inspected in about 2 years.

Took all the empty hives and supers etc during the day, and went back at night for the colonies. Shame as some of the empty ones had dead bees all over the floor. Turned out there was only 2 colonies left in all the hives. One small, but strong in a brood and super. The other was in a brood and 2 supers.

Gave them a quick inspection yesterday on their old site, and they are both packed, and obviously not opened in a long time. They were a bugger to open up. The bigger hive bees were being a nightmare. Dive bombing and stinging me like mad.

After the move, I left them for most of the day, and went up about 4pm today and gave them a better look over. Things like the entrance blocks were still in place, with small openings, and the wooden bit that goes below the mesh floor (don't know what its called). So I took these both out to cool the hive a bit.

The big hive are still nasty. They chased me along back to the car, and then my workshop, going over 60 feet away and they were still after me. Not sure what I will do with them yet, but they have more than enough brood for a split, and I think I'll be re-queening.

Im picking two colonys up today that have been left for two seasons.. So I'm very interested on how you get on.
They are also very aggressive.
Have you isolated yours from other bee's?

 

[DaveG23]

Quick check to make sure all hives secure and upright. Wind is dying off a bit but will continue through tommorrow.

Ash, hawthorn, sycamore, even poppy seedlings have taken a salt laden hammering.

 

[Angry_Mob]

Got a little damage from the wind here, I tied and weighed down all the hives and spares but I forgot about the bait hive on the roof of the shed which was strapped and weighed down with a single large stone, that blew off and cracked the nuc extension box; but it was along the bottom so remains serviceable for bait hive duties. One of the empty nuc boxes blew over despite being weighted down causing very slight damage.

My father reversed over my bee cart; completely bent.

Just under half the trees I had potted up blew away. Not my best day.

 

[Wingy]

Nothing with the bees, too windy here to go opening hives. Spent a few hours weeding around the allotment while watching the bees deal with landing & take off. Spotted something go into a bait hive that has had no interest, on inspection found a wasp nest just a bit bigger than a golf ball. Performed the wasp nest disappearing trick, all sorted.

 

[Newbeeneil]

Visited one of my apiaries today and lit up my smoker, grabbed a handful of fuel from my bucket and stuffed it in the top. Closed up the top and headed for the hives.
After a puff in the entrance and another over the queen excluder I put the smoker on an adjacent hive and delved into the box. After about 5 minutes my smoker suddenly exploded blowing the lid open.
On inspection I found the carcase of an old empty gas lighter which I must have inadvertently shoved into the smoker with the fuel!
Thank goodness I wasn't holding it betweem my knees!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Now that was funny

 

[pargyle]

Now that was funny

I laughed until I thought of the potential consequences .. buttock clenching to say the least ! I have a habit (I think it's age related) of putting things down in strange places or in a box with something else to keep it safe ... and then forgetting where I've put them ..

I could see myself doing this ... fortunately, I light my smoker with either a kitchen blowtorch or my Rothenberger blow torch .. luckily neither would fit in my smoker ...

 

[Erichalfbee]

I laughed until I thought of the potential consequences .. buttock clenching to say the least ! I have a habit (I think it's age related) of putting things down in strange places or in a box with something else to keep it safe ... and then forgetting where I've put them ..

I found my phone in the microwave one day.
I have half way houses. I intend to put something away next time I’m there so leave it half way there to pick up when I’m passing. Drives Stan mad!

 

[pargyle]

I found my phone in the microwave one day.
I have half way houses. I intend to put something away next time I’m there so leave it half way there to pick up when I’m passing. Drives Stan mad!

Yes ... I do that as well .. unfortunately, it tends to take root until 'er indoors gets the hump about it .. and that's when I move it and lose it...