What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Markthebuilder]

Took a super off a hive that befor my hols had 2 on, and I was optimistic it was going into a 3rd,
Rescued a swarm found on the ground with clipped queen . I believe they absconded from my wbc hive due to robbing or wasps .
Gave a nuc a frame of stores from an 8 frame hive and replaced with empty comb in the hope new queen is ready to lay up .also swapped out a foundation frame for comb.
Checked oa vape equip was working

 

[Moobee]

Put together a 6” roof for the new hive with a block of celotex in the top. Too windy here for 4 inchers!

 

[Moobee]

Managed to get a surprise couple of hours this afternoon so checked 8 colonies and 4 nucs across two sites. Nucs doing well, the colonies a mixed bag with one having entirely disappeared... Not really sure why they absconded but they had an UFE and there haven't been many wasps about so that seems unlikely. They had only been requeened a month ago with a lovely queen given to me by a friend in Yorkshire. However, I have a wonderful queen from a swarm this year (marked blue) plus the queen from my best colony is still doing well, bred her this year and one of the few who mated successfully in the poor spring- she was a bit quick this afternoon though.

Also started packing fondant into takeaway tubs in preparation for winter and thinking about varroa treatments.

That’s my next job - carving fondant blocks.

 

[Wilco]

That’s my next job - carving fondant blocks.

Carving sounds so much more sophisticated. I just put on the marigolds, tore off handfuls of fondant and stuffed it into the tubs until they were full!

 

[Moobee]

Carving sounds so much more sophisticated. I just put on the marigolds, tore off handfuls of fondant and stuffed it into the tubs until they were full!

Well I say carving…..

 

[Dutchman]

Finished spinning, the bees are clearing any frames that were not quite ripe, this weeks total 200 Kg so that is a total for the year of 430 kg from 10 hives, average 43 kg per hive that's my best year, thank you bees!

 

[Tarahill]

Today I took it upon myself to release a queen that had been introduced 4 days ago.....fondant too hard etc. The bees were crawling over the cage but not clinging or showing aggression. I gently slid open the cage with the entrance facing down into the hive. My decision to mark said queen with a bright neon pink dot certainly paid off as I was able to see her emerge from the hive and take to the air. I was also able to get several glimpses of her flying about a metre or so from the hive.
I stood there for twenty minutes thinking I might serve some useful purpose, as a landmark if not as a beekeeper. Then I left the crown board ajar for a while and tended to the other hives. I also took the queen guard away from the front of the apidea she was mated from, just in case she navigated her way back. I suppose I'll know in a few days....was she likely to return to the queenless hive?

Well well. The above mentioned apidea had produced a nice looking emergency queen cell and I had decided to leave it to its own devices. The other day i heard a queen piping, as there was only one queen cell I decided to leave it alone, ten I remembered about the airborne queen. Sure enough there she was. She'd laid up the available space and an impressive dark looking intact qc was present. I've no idea who was piping....am I right in thinking it was the emerged queen who was piping, and if I hadn't removed the mated queen that battle would probably have commenced?

 

[GuyNir]

Agreed new prices with my local farm shop and received first order (120 jars).

 

[Newbeeneil]

Put the generator in the back of the van and played with my new toy - a sublimox, very easy to use except that I put some Apibioxal into the cup and ended up with a mess!

 

[Newbeeneil]

That’s my next job - carving fondant blocks.

I carved up a couple of slabs of fondant so that I can put on any hives low on stores after I steal their supers.

 

[Tarahill]

Well well. The above mentioned apidea had produced a nice looking emergency queen cell and I had decided to leave it to its own devices. The other day i heard a queen piping, as there was only one queen cell I decided to leave it alone, ten I remembered about the airborne queen. Sure enough there she was. She'd laid up the available space and an impressive dark looking intact qc was present. I've no idea who was piping....am I right in thinking it was the emerged queen who was piping, and if I hadn't removed the mated queen that battle would probably have commenced?

Sorry, I meant to ask if it was the yet to emerge queen who was piping

 

[GuyNir]

Jarring and labelling. Not my favourite activity I must say…

 

[victor meldrew]

I removed the top super of 5 on one hive .
the only reason being, it is damned heavy and a pain to lift down and return for inspections.
nine fat frames
I reckon there’s a months worth of quality forage out there before the Ivy kicks In .

 

[pnkemp]

First ever visit of a bee inspector. Learned a lot in the 2 hours she was with us.

Whipped off the unfortunately empty supers, whacked on some ApiGuard ready for end of season. Looks like one of the nucs very unlikely to survive winter, brood very spotty and mostly but not entirely drone, so probably the queen who started off so promisingly wasn't well mated. Oh well.

 

[Nannysbees]

Inspection day put apiguard on bluebell removed queen excluder and left the super on which shell keep for winter, has stores and hopefully more with the ivy flow
Returned the last brood and a half to a brood, the half which we put at the bottom has mostly emerged and the last few can emerge above the qx
The other three hives are still capping so thought we'd leave the apiguard for them for at least next week ,or a couple of weeks depending on the next inspection. All looking strong with brood end to end on frames.

 

[Swarm]

Dug out two huge lengths of 6"x 3" to make stands and cleared an area of bramble ready for the new hives. Bees were busy but still none on Balsam. The supers are looking nicely capped but I have a few deep boxes to deal with first so I'll clear those tomorrow when I check around the nucs and try to make a dent in the super situation by the weekend.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Took Stan’s lot down to the bees

 

[Goran]

A bit of late Queen rearing..

 

[Moobee]

Had a bit of a rookie error today..... my bee shed is about 20 feet from the hives and 10 feet from the kitchen door. I was making up some syrup and had left the shed door open as was ferrying stuff back and forth to the kitchen.
Hadn't realised a couple of wet frames that I thought were securely stashed in a plastic bag (as had no room in my bee tight plastic box - note to self, order another one ) had tipped over and were oozing honey onto the shelf.
Returning to the bee shed after finishing up the syrup, was surprised to see a load of bees basically robbing the honey, stuck on the windows and whizzing round the cabin
Had to deploy the hose on fine spray to get near enough to grab a suit, reseal everything, let the bees out and close up....

 

[GuyNir]

One of my biggest colonies, Q and eggs not seen for ~3 weeks now, but I was puzzled as they didn’t sound/act Q-…
Gave them a test frame on Sun. Today no QC’s drawn + VQ seen on one of the frames. looked not mated yet. A bit late but drones are still around and the weather looks good for the next 7-10 days.

Will leave them a couple weeks now.