What did you do in the Apiary today?

[GuyNir]

Schoolboy error yesterday ... I had too many supers to take off to put them all in the kitchen - in the past I'd stored them temporarily in the workshop next door to the apiary but Son No 2 was working in there and he really doesn't like the bees .. so, I figured they would be OK in my Keter store .. it's not bee proof but it's a fair way from the apiary and the clearers had done a good job of emptying them. It was all going fine ... take a super from the store .. crown board back on the stack .. empty one back to the store, crownboard on top ... take another super ...

There were a few bees sniffing around but nothing to get excited about .... until I forgot to replace the crown board on the pile of extracted supers - by the time I had uncapped the next super and returned the next batch of spun frames to the Keter store, only about 15 miutes .... Mayhem. Hundreds of bees - they were everywhere. I isolated one spun super but left it accessible to them in the hope that I could carry on extracting ... No chance, as soon as tried to take another super off the stack for uncapping they were all over it..

Had to give up until it got dark and they went home (even then there were a few stragglers). It makes you apprceciate just how good bees are at communicating where there is a source of food. There's a lot still milling around this morning but there's nothing that they can get at so I'm hopeful they will lose interest.

Like I said ... schoolboy error.

Reading the first couple sentences, I could sense where this is going... yep, amazes me always how quick this happens...

 

[E&MBees]

Enough space in the middle for another national if needed. Although that's not the intention. But yes a nucleus hive would fit easily, the main frame rails are wide enough for brood frames to rest between during inspections.

Thanks for that.

 

[Swarm]

Looking at the leg placement makes me wonder what would happen with a heavy hive one side and a small one opposite.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Looking at the leg placement makes me wonder what would happen with a heavy hive one side and a small one opposite.

Thinking the same - from experience (for some reason I changed the leg positions on two stands I made a few years ago) I once arrived at a new out apiary to find the lighter hive on the other side of the fence, in bits, colony goosed. they were on a slope so the heavies hive was still strapped to the stand, but upside down in the ditch, queenless.
My rule is the centre of the leg should be no further from the end of the stand than 8"

 

[pargyle]

Looking at the leg placement makes me wonder what would happen with a heavy hive one side and a small one opposite.

I would agree - err on the side of caution - I'd add a single leg in the middle of the two ends of the stand so there is no chance of it tipping.

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

Steve, I take my hat off. Brilliant artwork

Ditto. Very impressed.

 

[Swarm]

Swarm did a wonderful pastel of him for me.

Thanks everyone for the nice replies.
The thing is Dani, we missed you at the convention last year and we were so looking forward to this year and then the world stopped turning.
Knowing your love of Barn Owls with your Owl box and video cam, I had a little surprise for you.

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

Thanks everyone for the nice replies.
The thing is Dani, we missed you at the convention last year and we were so looking forward to this year and then the world stopped turning.
Knowing your love of Barn Owls with your Owl box and video cam, I had a little surprise for you.
View attachment 22269

Top bloke! What a lovely thing to do

 

[E&MBees]

Thanks everyone for the nice replies.
The thing is Dani, we missed you at the convention last year and we were so looking forward to this year and then the world stopped turning.
Knowing your love of Barn Owls with your Owl box and video cam, I had a little surprise for you.
View attachment 22269

That’s a beautiful picture.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thanks everyone for the nice replies.
The thing is Dani, we missed you at the convention last year and we were so looking forward to this year and then the world stopped turning.
Knowing your love of Barn Owls with your Owl box and video cam, I had a little surprise for you.
View attachment 22269

Steve I am overwhelmed. I don’t know what to say..... and that’s rare Hang on to it. There will be a Welsh Convention. There had better be. Emyr has a book dedicated to me by Tom Seeley. He better keep his sticky mits off it

 

[Nannysbees]

If we are posting pictures of our best friends, then here is Heidi, my year old mini schnauzer. She has kept me sane through lockdown. It’s just a shame that the bees don’t like her! They get caught in her whiskers.

We name a schnauzer called lily, they have amazing characters dont they

 

[Helen]

Not really in the apiary, but picked up a small swarm today, with a big, fat, light-tan green-marked queen in the middle.

 

[E&MBees]

We name a schnauzer called lily, they have amazing characters dont they

She’s lovely, much lighter than Heidi. Yes, they have amazing characters, fiercely loyal, stubborn, plucky. Heidi likes nothing more than a good cuddle!

 

[pargyle]

Reading the first couple sentences, I could sense where this is going... yep, amazes me always how quick this happens...

Staggering isn't it ? There were still lots milling around at 4.00pm today ... they clearly have a location memory that lasts overnight. I'd sealed everything up and cleaned any drops of honey that were laying around ... little beggars. You can see how, once robbing starts. you have to be very quick to catch it ... I reckon if I had been another half hour I would have had the whole bloody apiary resident in my Keter store ...

 

[Antipodes]

I had a very skinny queen in Autumn.... thought she was finished but I've just taken this split from her.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Feeding and treating at the home apiary today, not used to doing it in the blazing sunshine with bees going like the clappers. Ivy hasn't opened at Brynmair but has locally as the heady aroma of ivy nectar is everywhere.

 

[Swn58]

I did a full hive check on my allotment apiary today.

 

[Curly green finger's]

I've been out to Check four colonys in corely and weighed them the supers I put back on have capped frames in the middle of some, supers were added on the 10th of September
I've weighed and checked one in the garden and they have put on 23lbs in this time. One double (corely) has put on 28lbs.
Im wondering if/when it gets cold how long untill these will be all capped it isn't going to be just 20 days in total.
Here comes the variables again.
Im also wondering as they were all heavy of stores some summer honey and Heather if this will be mixed with the ivy?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Well this season is daft. Stan checked the colony on the roof and declared that they were absolutely rammed with stores all round a central core of brood on 6/7 frames just like lovely black bees should be. In a panic I sent him back with instructions to put a drawn super underneath in case they actually needed the room. The brood was too heavy to lift in his precarious position so he put it on top. I noticed later. I dreamed nightmares of these bees shivering to death in the winter with all that headroom (they are already in a 14x12). So I sent him back up to take it down this morning. It is half full of stores they’ve moved up overnight! So it stays.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Just to take limelight away from ivy flows here's a video of isolation.


Don't you just love using a feather.