What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Arfermo]

I remember . Pre Varroa , attending a demonstration on detecting the threatened Varroa invasion .
this consisted of sliding a sheet of news paper under the colony,.next igniting tobacco in a little cage hanging In a smoker . Pumping the smoke into the entrance and blocking it .
The upshot was , after 5 mins , the crown board was lifted to reveal the entire colony zonked out in a heap on the newspaper.
thankfully they all recovered !
Back to the drawing board!

Got spanked with with a dose of 'weed' too even then!!

 

[Kirbygrip]

Inspected 6 of my big 'production' colonies .It was only 13c but I had to get in them and today is one of the warmer ones this week! To sum it up in one word- DIRE! All supers empty apart from one which had 15lbs in (all used to feed the other hives as they were VERY low on stores). Brood nests contracting and bees not surprisingly very grumpy.

Really need the weather to drastically improve pronto or this could be an awful season for me.

 

[einsteinagogo]

Strimmed the nettles, and then my partner told me the bait hive I had set up at the front of the house, had many more bees visit it. This bait hive has had lots of interest since Thursday 13th May, I had to rush in and shut the office Window.

and then I got calls from two people in the village with swarms hanging in trees!

Easy catches, and then all the bees disappeared from the bait hive!

it's very odd, bees never arrived here before in the last five years, the moment I bring bees back to the village we get swarms appearing!

Best check my hives!

(not my bees honest gov!)

oh, and got an offer of using someone else's garden as an Apiary!!! So that#s a bonus!

 

[Nannysbees]

Saw this little spider on one of the hives, never seen anything like it before!!

 

[GuyNir]

Beautiful afternoon, 14c and mostly sunny. All hives flying. Inspected several colonies and demareed another strong colony (single brood with 9 frames of brood and the Q showing no signs of slowing down).

 

[Nannysbees]

Saw this little spider on one of the hives, never seen anything like it before!!

O god!!!!!

 

[drdrday]

After my last two inspections were interrupted by rain I finally managed to get things sorted out in both hives during a brief sunny spell this morning (one making swarm preps, and one still queenless). It's been raining every day for the last week, and rain's forecast for at least the next 5-6 days too, so no option but to keep trying to find a long enough dry spell to get anything done without a mad dash to reassemble hives in a downpour. The bees are managing to bring plenty of nectar and pollen in during the sunny dry periods. It just seems to be me having trouble finding time in the sun.

 

[BigAshW]

Just got back from the apiary.

Supers all off.

Have put the demaree colonies back together with the empty box ok the bottom and feeders on all the colonies.

Hopefully it's just for this next ten days and then the weather will break.

 

[masterBK]

Checked the 26 colonies at the out apiary . Not a swarm cell to be found. Liquid stores are still going down with the supers being emptied and honey being eaten back in the brood chambers. However loads of fresh pollen coming in and being stored (red horsechestnut pollen now coming in). Many of the queens have cut back on the laying (apart from those with yellow bees) Checked the oldest nuke (set up with supersedure cell on 26th April and found fresh eggs and young larvae so finally got a 2021 mated and laying queen. Hope the larvae get sealed with worker capping not the domed ones . Hopefully the other 20 + Virgins I have in nucs and demaree tops will soon follow suit (didn't check these today as they were not set up til 1st week in May). I expect a few drone layers or poorly mated ones due to the awful weather we have had and are still having. They all behaved well apart from three colonies (that seemed to have killed their clipped queens). Queenless bees can be expected to be touchy.

 

[Swn58]

Last week there was a 'pod' of bees sitting just under the roof of my super-hive.

Update:
I went back today, with three jobs to do; let out the bees locked down in the nuc, with the unsealed QC. Check the mystery swarm. Then deploy my Nicot box, in the chosen hive, so the bees could prepare it for the queen to then lay eggs in it, after I've locked her in there at the weekend.
First hold up: I got offered a short notice second Covid jab, so had to do that first. Second problem was no car available, so I had to cycle the 6 miles to my allotment apiary. There's a lot of hills! I got there at 11am, just as it started to pour down!
It was a case of......suit on....suit off....for the first two hours. I released the locked-up the bees, but had to wait two hours to open the hive to get the Nicot box in. I checked the swarm nuc. They seemed fine!
I at least managed to creosote.....or 'cote' as it now is, four pallets, as well. They are due to go to the farm later.
I then cycled home......in yet more rain. The sun did come out just, as I rode into my street though. Ahhhh!
I had thoughts of a nice bath, but had missed a call from a pallet-lorry driver by five minutes. He turned up minutes later with 720 12oz jars from The Bottle Company. There were eleven boxes to move. What a killer. I only ordered them yesterday!

 

[gmonag]

After getting the worst of the cold/dry weather in April, here in E Anglia we seem to be getting the best of May. We have had some showers but other than that things are almost normal ATM.
The hives have plenty of wet stores, even some capped honey and I had to AS my strongest colony yesterday. Things are looking up.

 

[Swn58]

O god!!!!!

WOW.....how exciting! Surely they can't eat up a whole hive?

 

[Goran]

Saw this little spider on one of the hives, never seen anything like it before!!

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/media/predators-3.3018/
https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/media/predators-2.3017/

 

[Goran]

I am still living worst beekeeping season ever.. Cold weather and heavy rain is taking turns in hammering of whatever left of heavy frosts in April.. Seems nature has some plan for humans ( and bees seems are collateral).. It looks not as some random calamity, it looks as superbly planned and systematic and flawless executed.. Hives are dry and bees I think more in despair going into swarming, even without stores to take with them.. What will go out from a hive? " Starving/hungry swarm" and when it depart in short windows without rain.. it will be hammered with heavy showers, winds and cold afterward.. I wish I can sleep over this year..

 

[Worker bee]

I went to check my hives for stores but got held up by an overwinter nuc now on its 3rd brood. They had a few Q cells the queen had layed in today. I put them in a full hive and easily filled two broods and I gave them an extra along with a super they had nearly filled six frames already, not bad for an overwintered nuc I took very late. They're about to get a big boost from the capped brood and should easily fill the extra brood box. I took a split off it a week ago but they soon used the extra frames. Tomorrow I'll transfer the split I took from it into the polly nuc and build it into a proper hive and check the others for stores. Crazy weather this year we've got to stay on the ball or lose swarms because those of us who have decent queens go from one brood to two in a few weeks even with bad weather . I just wish the temperatures would rise so we can get some frames drawn fast. I'm down to about one brood of drawn frames spare. The fishing umbrella is my new bit of beekeeping kit I think it's time to get the mating nucs out too so I have to put my best hives in another apiary ready for splits that will be deployed on the same site

 

[Nannysbees]

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/media/predators-3.3018/
https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/media/predators-2.3017/

Brilliant pictures thank you I'll tell my bees to keep an eye out

 

[B+.]

Not a lot today ... got suited up three times in glorious sunshine and by the time I was ready and smoker lit it was piddling down - gave up in the end and turned to the lathe for some relaxation instead. I'd bought a huge ball of garden twine from B&M for £3 so I made a dispenser for it - sad I know.

Nothing is ever wasted if you have a use for it.

 

[drdrday]

The fishing umbrella is my new bit of beekeeping kit

Same here! Either that or I might need to consider popping up the gazebo when I need to check the bees. 🌦

 

[Nannysbees]

Just finished inspecting our four hives in sunshine no less!!!! Think we spotted a queen in our swarm but let her be. Unfortunately in our split where there were lots of q cells and ones that had emerged, no queen, no eggs. We will buy a queen as they have now been queenless for over 4 weeks.
Struggling to buy one online, any ideas where we can get a mated buckfast from please?

 

[Niv]

The swarm I was given in a cardboard box on the 6th is a little light so gave them some syrup. Doing alright though, 3 frames of BIAS (or is that bad?)