What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Erichalfbee]

The 2 I’ve done aka Hivemaker so far are doing really well. Not reunited so early in the season before. Respectively on 6 & 8 frames brood within 2 weeks of uniting back. I was fretting whether it would work so early in the season & whether they would have enough brood prepared for the heather. Back like a train and one on double brood already. Just hope no more ideas of swarming this season. How are yours doing to date?

We have had a really bad June gap. The nucs have hardly kept pace. I’m consolidating the frames tomorrow so we will see

 

[Moobee]

Marked and clipped some new queens. So hot the sweat was dripping into my eyes and I could hardly see!

 

[madasafish]

Swarm Monday
Did my production hive inspections. Marked a couple of supersedure queens
Cloake Baord QR double Lang jumbo nuc - stuffed with bees- decided to swarm .Flew around: came back in : Queen (in bottom nuc ) decided she can't leave as QE over entrance she first used to orientate

Then second bait hive occupied by swarm from local school roof (Judging by colour and temperament (bad) and direction of travel).
10 minutes after that, phone call from Allotment Manager where I help with their four hives - swarm in local Wetherspoons' Beer Garden. Drive down, we collect swarm and rehive in under an hour. Judging by colour and location from same hive which issued a swarm two years ago which I collected from a bollard at the front of Wetherspoons (and 7 years before a shop rear 20 meters away.)

Requeened a failing hive - chalk brood- for an another beekeeper

Who says beekeeping is dull?

 

[Dutchman]

Checked the last of my 7 new nucs, it now also has a laying queen, 3 weeks later than the first, they all began on the same day. Patience pays off.

 

[nettle]

Does this look like a queen?


View attachment InShot_20220620_211338561.mp4
Got back to the car this evening after being at the veg garden, and there were loads of bees flying along the road and around the hedge on the other side. I noticed a couple of little clusters, one on a low plant on the verge, and this wee one on the road. They're clustered around what looks like a dead queen. There are quite a lot of dead bees on the road. If this was a swarm that was hit by a car I'm pretty certain they can't be from my hives. I only have one Q+ hive, and she's in residence with no swarm cells (split performed last week). I'm not sure how close I am to any other beekeepers.

 

[Erichalfbee]

That is a drone with his endophallus protruding

 

[nettle]

Thanks Dani. That's good then.

 

[StephenT]

Stuck a super each on all three hives as the supers were feeling very heavy when the two of us were lifting them off and there’s a massive flow on the minute. Hopefully the Lime. One who had a new queen less than 2 months ago have pretty much filled 2 supers in a week! Hive 3, where I had gambled 9 days ago that 2 QC’s were supersedure cells, had since torn them down. Bit odd. @elainemary @Erichalfbee Have you seen this happen just a couple of weeks after finishing the Peter Little swarm control method that you have both spoken about recently on here as that was the method I used on this hive? Seems to have worked in all other respects.

 

[Swarm]

Red legs.

 

[Antipodes]

Does this look like a queen?

View attachment 32513
View attachment 32514
Got back to the car this evening after being at the veg garden, and there were loads of bees flying along the road and around the hedge on the other side. I noticed a couple of little clusters, one on a low plant on the verge, and this wee one on the road. They're clustered around what looks like a dead queen. There are quite a lot of dead bees on the road. If this was a swarm that was hit by a car I'm pretty certain they can't be from my hives. I only have one Q+ hive, and she's in residence with no swarm cells (split performed last week). I'm not sure how close I am to any other beekeepers.

It looks to me to be a queen (with an endophallus from a drone). I'm going by the look of the abdomen and legs and also the head as seen in the video as they cluster. Clustering around it is also evidence of a queen.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Red legs.

You’re right. My mistake. Back to school for me.

 

[Erichalfbee]

It looks to me to be a queen (with an endophallus from a drone). I'm going by the look of the abdomen and legs and also the head as seen in the video as they cluster. Clustering around it is also evidence of a queen.

And I didn’t look at the video ……shame on me.

 

[JamezF]

Inspected my hives at home today. I'm a bit short of vehicles to get to my other sites thanks to my wife's car going into "limp home" mode at the weekend

The swarm that moved into one of my bait hives ten days ago has been drawing comb beautifully from the starter strips that I put in to go with the frame of old brood comb. They're well on with the last but one frame in the box now, and others are laid up with well-advanced larvae, so I guess that means it was a prime swarm. I'm half-tempted to add another brood chamber.

On the other hand, the hive that took ages to get going in the spring still seems way behind. I removed the lower brood box of comb in April and added new foundation on top of the remaining box. They're still drawing that out and pretty much everything that is drawn out is full of nectar. I was hoping to take some brood from this hive to make up nucs, but I don't feel that it's strong enough. I'm not even convinced I'll get any significant amount of honey from them this year.

I'll leave the other swarm in a bait hive until the weekend before checking on it I think. They've only been there a week so I don't feel that there's any rush. Once I have a car again I'll get to the other apiary and hopefully I'll be able to take a few frames of brood from the hives there to make up nucs.

James

 

[user 20297]

First chance I've had to check out the Llety'r Deryn apiary today - had to use the public footpath and jump over the fence into their garden as they've gone on holidays and locked the driveway gates! but I needed to sort out a colony with CBPV - piles of dead bees outside last week but today Is the first chance I've had to go down again.
A lot fewer dead bees now but the colony is still looking good although plenty of shakers so they are sat on a shallow on the stand - no floor, all I can do is hope they sort themselves out

Having followed your advice last week, I did a quick inspection of my suspected CBPV hive today. Over the last few days, the number of bees dropping out has been fairly consistent and not huge. There are fewer bees dead and abandoned in the gutters under the runners of the boxes and they aren't looking shaky on the top-bars. I have raised the floorless hive above the open stand on a 100mm eke so that the ground is around 450mm below the frames. But I've taken away a board underneath which I was using to collect the dead bees. It seemed that some healthy bees were using it to orientate themselves before flying out for forage. I didn't want them mixing with their dead siblings; I feel that the natural ground surface, being rough and indistinct, is less likely to be a good place for them to land. But it will be harder for me to remove the dead bees.
It seems to be disproportionately affecting drones and very young bees seem unaffected.
There was a fair bit of chalk-brood over the last few weeks and this has largely gone now. the capped brood is no longer patchy and looks bright and even.
Maybe this is how the virus progresses...from an evolutionary perspective, it wouldn't make sense for it to knock out too many young bees. We're not out of the woods yet, but thanks for giving a simple action that can be taken that takes away a feeling of powerlessness.

 

[jeff33]

The sense of achievement when you crack open a hive and catch them within half hour of swarming. Managed to find the slim down queen and nuc her in time.
Flow is in full mode, supers, BB, everything is being filled with nectar!!
Rehomed the swarm from the bait box which had been in the box for a month. It was a cast and the queen has laid 4 frames. They were really placid but then again, the flow is on!!

 

[The Poot]

Removed two supers after fitting clearer board yesterday. Very few bees still in the boxes today. Added a super of drawn comb and foundation to give them space. (Found a super in wet storage from last year, trashed by wax moths) Extracted the frames this evening, ably assisted by my grand daughters. Tomorrow I’ll give back three frames which were over the water threshold.

 

[Jimmy]

Nectar dripping from every frame during inspections today. Bramble and clover covered in bees in the hedges and field margins.
Regicide seemed to be the theme of manipulations today. Two drone layers terminated thanks to a hive tool test. The first colony will have the workers join a neighbour next week. The second was a small cast swarm picked up in the garden that barely covered two frames and the queen must have mated in the indifferent weather 2-3 weeks ago. A third queen went to meet its maker as following an artificial swarm last week the workers seemed intent on balling the queen up against the excluder. That colony has been given a ripe queen cell.

 

[elainemary]

Stuck a super each on all three hives as the supers were feeling very heavy when the two of us were lifting them off and there’s a massive flow on the minute. Hopefully the Lime. One who had a new queen less than 2 months ago have pretty much filled 2 supers in a week! Hive 3, where I had gambled 9 days ago that 2 QC’s were supersedure cells, had since torn them down. Bit odd. @elainemary @Erichalfbee Have you seen this happen just a couple of weeks after finishing the Peter Little swarm control method that you have both spoken about recently on here as that was the method I used on this hive? Seems to have worked in all other respects.

Not seen that with mine so far….. both were doing well after accepting her back enthusiastically. I just United the queen in a cage with a small piece of fondant, rather than uniting the full Nuc back and I used the Nuc she was in, to put a protected queen cell from some queen rearing I was doing. I did find one of these Nucs made their own emergency cells but the protected cell emerged and I found both new queens in their Nucs laying yesterday & marked them.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I

Stuck a super each on all three hives as the supers were feeling very heavy when the two of us were lifting them off and there’s a massive flow on the minute. Hopefully the Lime. One who had a new queen less than 2 months ago have pretty much filled 2 supers in a week! Hive 3, where I had gambled 9 days ago that 2 QC’s were supersedure cells, had since torn them down. Bit odd. @elainemary @Erichalfbee Have you seen this happen just a couple of weeks after finishing the Peter Little swarm control method that you have both spoken about recently on here as that was the method I used on this hive? Seems to have worked in all other respects.

Yet to look in mine. Consolidated the unites on Monday.

 

[Brian Bush]

I made my first concerted attempt at grafting larvae today.
I set up a box overflowing with bees containing sealed brood stores and a blank frame of foundation to keep them ammused.
I placed a new cell frame in the box having brushed diluted honey over the cells and frames to get the bees to clean and accept it.
Last evening I tried to graft sat in the car it was a disaster. I was unable to move things efficiently. So I abandoned the attempt.
This morning I rose early and set everything out on the table in the cool of the garden.
I retrieved the grafting frame from the cell raiser box and a frame of young larvae from my favourite home hive.
I grafted 30 larvae in the cool of the new day, placed them in the cell raiser and put it safely in an apiary.
I am now awaiting an inspection in 3 days to see if I have been successful. I have had poor success in the past and relied on B+ last year to provide some grafts for me.