What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Goran]

Yesterday and will today help friend to pack bees for moving onto forage.. I forgot how stressful and demanding it is.. With unknown result due to bad weather we have recently ( heavy rains, strong winds)..

 

[Swarm]

Found some sweet, wet stuff dripping from cells as I inspected today, that was nice to see.

 

[JimBee463]

Pretty much finished my hive site now, cleared all the cr@p from the general area and added weed suppressant membrane underneath the plastic pallets and on the bank. Hopefully this will mean minimal maintenance in front of the hive.

Undecided as to whether I need a netting 'fence' at the rear of the hive area - i'll play this by ear I think.

I will also be getting one of those plastic garden storage boxes to keep spare supers etc in, which will be placed at the rear on the right (on the scrappy piece of earth where the wooden pallets are)

 

[StephenT]

Late write up as was yesterday. The two hives we expanded to 16 frames double brood about 10 days ago have been drawing and laying in the new frames. Added a super to one and looking forward to a week of hot weather and lime forage . Found another two QC‘s in double brood + 3 supers hive 3. Reckon it’s supersedure so left them to it but may bottle it tomorrow and nuc her, if I’m not too late. Living on the edge

Edit: has also been quite a lot of crawling bees outside of one hive which I reckon is CBPV as had it last year in two hives. Has been mentioned on here about replacing queens as a way to combat it. Anyone done this with good results as I would not have thought an endemic virus in the hive could be addressed that way (in my very layman‘s thinking).

 

[JamezF]

Visited my new apiary site to drop off two bait hives which is all I'm going to leave there for the moment. We'll see what turns up.

The site is well sheltered to the north, east and west and this is the view to the south:

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

Edit: has also been quite a lot of crawling bees outside of one hive which I reckon is CBPV as had it last year in two hives. Has been mentioned on here about replacing queens as a way to combat it. Anyone done this with good results as I would not have thought an endemic virus in the hive could be addressed that way (in my very layman‘s thinking).

Open floor and new unrelated queen sorted it for me

 

[Nannysbees]

Visited my new apiary site to drop off two bait hives which is all I'm going to leave there for the moment. We'll see what turns up.

The site is well sheltered to the north, east and west and this is the view to the south:

James

That is lovely

 

[Erichalfbee]

Visited my new apiary site to drop off two bait hives which is all I'm going to leave there for the moment. We'll see what turns up.



The site is well sheltered to the north, east and west and this is the view to the south:

James

You have ready made storage, I see

 

[JamezF]

You have ready made storage, I see

The brick building? I believe that's a water pumping station or something along those lines. Or perhaps once was. I checked it over quickly to make sure I wasn't going to be getting in the way of anything and noticed an enormous valve mechanism propped up next to the building. It must have been something like two feet in diameter (internally). I should take some photos next time I'm there.

James

 

[E&MBees]

New queen has been accepted, and is laying beautifully. She has plumped up nicely and looks really good. The other colonies are picking up again, as laying rate had definitely slowed. Good to see the brood frame corners filling up with nectar. Supers are ready !

 

[StephenT]

Open floor and new unrelated queen sorted it for me

It’s not at the stage that they cannot clear bees out and need an open floor but a brand new queen is worth a try given anecdotal evidence. Not sure what the science behind a new queen is though

 

[Wilco]

It’s not at the stage that they cannot clear bees out and need an open floor but a brand new queen is worth a try given anecdotal evidence. Not sure what the science behind a new queen is though

The issue is not that they become unable to clear the dead bees but that the act of them clearing away dead bees spreads the virus to the 'undertaker' bees, so more get infected and the disease becomes more prevalent in the hive.

For any disease to spread it needs both susceptible individuals and transmission. The more of these the faster it spreads.

By having the open floor, it basically cuts the transmission. The bee equivalent of social distancing.

Changing the queen is based on the suggestion that there is a genetic component to susceptibility and by changing the genetics you reduce susceptibility.

End result - less transmission and less susceptible population. R number gets below 1, disease dies out.

 

[Mabee]

This is very contentious
Eggs....maybe? I've never heard of larvae being moved
Did you look in the cell? Was there a queen or a drone in it?

I didn’t pay out much attention, I was planning on requeening with a new queen I had with better genetics and removed the frame but I was surprised to see the cells as there couldn’t have been viable larvae to use, or so I thought. Maybe he just said eggs and not larvae but in my head I thought there weren’t any eggs to move into those cells, which is why I believed they were made from drone larvae or (moved - probably not) worker larvae.

 

[elainemary]

Attended a bee breeding session yesterday with Bedfordshire beekeepers, run by an old forum member B+ and also met another forum member @Brian Bush .
Quite a hike down south but that’s what happens when bee fever takes a hold!

Both very welcoming and I had a good day, learning about breeding values. The highlight was some virgins generously given to me to get mated and try out. Kept them warm stuck up my jumper (a forum top tip ) on the long journey back, then straight into incubator. Making up Apideas today.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Were these from Paul?
Are you going to run them treatment free?

 

[elainemary]

Were these from Paul?
Are you going to run them treatment free?

Yes , I haven't thought about treatment free....

 

[gregior]

Inspected 10 of mine today,there is the very start of a flow coming on here which is a good job as a lot of them were pretty low on stores after the recent bad weather and June gap. 3 of my early splits are trying to swarm again (justifiably as they were rammed with brood and bees) I'm completely out of kit now so had to nuc the queens in spare supers and travel boxes! Bees not too grumpy considering there's been no flow on for a good while.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It’s not at the stage that they cannot clear bees out and need an open floor

that's not the point - the reason for the open floor is that the undertakers don't have to clear bees out, therefore they don't have any mandibular contact with the infected bees (or any contact at all) so don't get infected and thus fewer opportunities of passing on the virus to the others

 

[Erichalfbee]

Spot on. The sick bees just fall off the frames before the housekeepers have to eject them.

 

[StephenT]

that's not the point - the reason for the open floor is that the undertakers don't have to clear bees out, therefore they don't have any mandibular contact with the infected bees (or any contact at all) so don't get infected and thus fewer opportunities of passing on the virus to the others

Would you requeen at the same time as removing the floor then? This hive definitely had CBPV last year and this year it’s not shiny or shaking bees but more ones who just can’t fly and are walking in front of the hive generally with open wings, but not k wing and some have swollen abdomens. Very small number have shrivelled wings so should do a sugar roll test for varroa as well.