What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Swarm]

Good day: local EHO phoned to say they can’t be bothered to come out and do a hygiene inspection for our extraction and jarring process because “5 hives is too small and off our radar, we trust you to get on with it and be good”.

Bad day: email notification of EFB with 3km of apiary.

Not the first time I've heard this, we had a presentation given by TS and EH and they are not really interested in a hobbyist with a few hives.

 

[B+.]

I usually have problems getting bees to accept grafts after mid-summer. This year is quite different. The late start is keeping them interested.
This colony has 60 grafts (36 from NL-55-35-15-2020 & 24 from NL-55-35-31-2020) which are destined to be inseminated with drone semen from The NL.

Someone asked me how full my cell raisers are. Well - when they line up like this looking at you, you're about there.

 

[spiderplantman]

Not the first time I've heard this, we had a presentation given by TS and EH and they are not really interested in a hobbyist with a few hives.

And yet, when first researching it, as a hobbyist you'd be forgiven for thinking, from the tone of literature, you were number one wanted criminal if you didn't register with EH, get level 2 hygiene (or better), have a written HACCP policy in place, purchase a trade approved set of scales, napalm-scour everything within a 2 mile radius, just to sell a couple of hundred jars that are surplus to private consumption at a farmers market to recoup the cost of the year's frames, feed and treatments.

Got to prioritise the budgets I suppose.

 

[Nannysbees]

Great inspection yesterday finally all four hives queen right, accepted the latest bought queen.Eggs in all four. Kitted out my 86 year old dad in my bee suit four him to experience the delights of an inspection, never too old to experience something new

 

[Nannysbees]

Are your hive entrances fully open? Do you leave your smaller colonies with a restricted entrance?

 

[GuyNir]

Introduced 2 more Q’s and took the tab off 2 others.
Lots of rain expected today & tomorrow, then some nice weather next week. Looks promising.

 

[E&MBees]

Cried. Despite my best attempts to prevent my main queen swarming, she has gone. They obviously didn’t like the nuc that I transferred them too. The remaining bees in the split have a good sized qc which will emerge over this weekend. My other colonies have either newly mated or virgin queens in and I have two more queens arriving in a few weeks. Hopefully I’ll go into winter with strong colonies.

 

[GuyNir]

Cried. Despite my best attempts to prevent my main queen swarming, she has gone. They obviously didn’t like the nuc that I transferred them too. The remaining bees in the split have a good sized qc which will emerge over this weekend. My other colonies have either newly mated or virgin queens in and I have two more queens arriving in a few weeks. Hopefully I’ll go into winter with strong colonies.

Sorry to hear.

 

[Swarm]

And yet, when first researching it, as a hobbyist you'd be forgiven for thinking, from the tone of literature, you were number one wanted criminal if you didn't register with EH, get level 2 hygiene (or better), have a written HACCP policy in place, purchase a trade approved set of scales, napalm-scour everything within a 2 mile radius, just to sell a couple of hundred jars that are surplus to private consumption at a farmers market to recoup the cost of the year's frames, feed and treatments.

Got to prioritise the budgets I suppose.

A fair bit of scare mongering goes on.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Cried. Despite my best attempts to prevent my main queen swarming, she has gone. They obviously didn’t like the nuc that I transferred them too. The remaining bees in the split have a good sized qc which will emerge over this weekend. My other colonies have either newly mated or virgin queens in and I have two more queens arriving in a few weeks. Hopefully I’ll go into winter with strong colonies.

Oh no. Not Steve’s black one?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Cried. Despite my best attempts to prevent my main queen swarming, she has gone. They obviously didn’t like the nuc that I transferred them too. The remaining bees in the split have a good sized qc which will emerge over this weekend. My other colonies have either newly mated or virgin queens in and I have two more queens arriving in a few weeks. Hopefully I’ll go into winter with strong colonies.

What did you put in the nuc? did you leave it near the mother hive for a days or so for the flying bees to return there?

 

[E&MBees]

Oh no. Not Steve’s black one?

Yes. I’m very sad. Had named her Missee Lee after the female pirate in the books Swallows and Amazon’s. I had to split her colony back in late April due to swarm preps which foiled my plan to demarree. She then built back up to a full size double brood. I have been doing 5 day inspections and all was ok, but last week found early stage charged qc’s. Queen was put in a nuc with just the flyers and a mix of empty drawn frames and foundation. She was there Monday, but gone today. Left a few bees and a frame of eggs.

 

[E&MBees]

What did you put in the nuc? did you leave it near the mother hive for a days or so for the flying bees to return there?

Just queen, returning flyers drawn frames and foundation. No brood or nurse/ house bees.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

. Queen was put in a nuc with just the flyers

That was your problem - the fliers are your swarm instigators and they were obviously hot to trott.
In future, better to put the queen on a frame of brood plus a mix of drawn comb and foundation then add a good shake or two of bees then leave the nuc not far from the mother hive. All the flying bees will fly out but return to the mother hive leaving only nurse bees in the nuc

 

[Erichalfbee]

That was your problem - the fliers are your swarm instigators and they were obviously hot to trott.
In future, better to put the queen on a frame of brood plus a mix of drawn comb and foundation then add a good shake or two of bees then leave the nuc not far from the mother hive. All the flying bees will fly out but return to the mother hive leaving only nurse bees in the nuc

Yes Emily That’s how you nuc a queen for a split. You isolate her from the foraging bees

 

[LeaBees]

Someone asked me how full my cell raisers are. Well - when they line up like this looking at you, you're about there.

Somewhat unsettling....

 

[Boston Bees]

Got called to a swarm yesterday. Nice old lady.

I told her I was looking for the queen bee, as the bees walked into the nuc.

She said "oh, yes, they have blue dots on, don't they!"

Bless. Apparently she has been telling her grandkids for years that queen bees naturally have blue dots on them.

 

[FullerBee]

Today I inspected and transferred my bees from nuc to brood box. Letting them settle down and watching them bring the pollen in!

 

[B+.]

Somewhat unsettling....

It would be if they had malicious intentions but these are very quiet, calm bees.

 

[BigAshW]

Five virgins queen's arrived safely from Northumberland honey.

Have put them in to the mating nucs but left the tabs on the cages. Will see how they're being treated saturday morning and take the tabs off if they look ok.