What did you do in the Apiary today?

[user 819]

Removed the remaining cleared supers and BB's from Mondays final insp at one apiary and put on the feeders in the rain. A large garden parasol being ideal cover in the rain, three colonies given a gallon of feed and one given two gallons as they were down to only 7lbs of stores.

Two more apiary sites to do tomorrow or friday for a final inspection and check for stores prior to deciding if any feed will be needed. As in the past few years I am hoping the ivy bolsters stores and have seen them gain 10- 15lbs in the past.

 

[Pembroke]

Dead easy, many a joyful hour spent as a child hunting wazzer [wasp] nests.

Would the Tom Seeley method of bee hunting work for finding wasps nests or are the wasps too haphazard in their foraging for it to work?

Method shown and explained in this YouTube video.

 

[E&MBees]

New battery arrived today so vaped the bees. It weighs about 3kg so easy to carry in a shopping bag. Much easier to use than trying to reset the jump starter battery half way through a cycle and then topping it up in the car between colonies.

 

[W0otz]

Strong smell of ivy in the apiary today. The colony I've left a super on is filling it nicely and starting to cap it.


I reckon they'd fill another if given the chance, but I'm just going to take this one when it's ready and then hope it's still warm enough to get a few litres of 2:1 into them. If not I've got a decent stock of fondant.

 

[Garry R]

Last night went to the apiary to find that my double hive stand had collapsed. Transferred the two hives to a new one and repaired the bust one at home and gave it a coat of fence paint so back as good as new for next year. Bees all vaped x 4 and one varroa on the last drop 24 hours after vaping (Gas Vap) but then there were not a lot of mites anyway. Bees covering 19 frames on my 14 x 12" Drayton style hive which was made from pallets last winter so that was a success. The National long hive in the avatar is bringing in pollen like there is no tomorrow and all have the electric wire conduit home made wasp guards on and they are working a treat. Ivy nicely out (just). Sloes and blackberries picked from round the apiary so all is pretty good with the world. Am now waiting for the next thing to inevitably go wrong....... but an hour has gone by without any disaster so looking good here in Somerset.

 

[Swarm]

Spent the afternoon at my friend's apiary, one of his stands collapsed a while ago when we had a lot of rain. He found two hives over and split apart, they were soaked and a robbing frenzy was going on so he got them back together and propped them up ready for a new stand. I was still shaking water out of the super combs today but we managed to get any good combs of stores into a single box. He wanted to nadir the box but I talked him out of that as it was mainly sealed and they'd had enough stress lately. The brood frames were still hanging at an angle and we found the queen on the first frame and some very nice brood on the other frames. BIAS also in the other hive so at least he only lost some supers of honey.
All his colonies have some very deep, amber nectar in the combs, lots of Knotweed and Balsam around.

 

[victor meldrew]

Removed the clearing boards off the hives before the bees both work out the route to the supers and build brace comb beneath the the said boards .
the speed at which this can be accomplished is surprising.

 

[enrico]

Removed all the queen excluders, I haven't got much sugar left so I decided to leave a super on each as I have had a good crop. I was amazed how full the supers are. Not sure where it is coming from but a bit worried no they might not have enough room!

 

[Swarm]

Wonky bottom bars in contact with brace caused a couple of frames to move so my lovely bees thought it was a good idea to build this three pound, free comb.

 

[StephenT]

Did vape no.2 through a hole in an eke but as I left the eke on after the first vape, they had built a lot of wild comb in the space. Good flow on at the minute with the waft of drying nectar coming from the hives. @Erichalfbee Do you put the eke on each time you vape from the top as that would seem like a lot of faff?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Did vape no.2 through a hole in an eke but as I left the eke on after the first vape, they had built a lot of wild comb in the space. Good flow on at the minute with the waft of drying nectar coming from the hives. @Erichalfbee Do you put the eke on each time you vape from the top as that would seem like a lot of faff?

I leave mine on. Never had comb built in them.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Third vape done minus two hives as I ran out of battery. Will do them tomorrow

 

[Hachi]

Would the Tom Seeley method of bee hunting work for finding wasps nests or are the wasps too haphazard in their foraging for it to work?

Method shown and explained in this YouTube video.

Yes and no

Basically a wazzer zig zags leaving the nest hunting for food. The return flight is in a straight line back to the nest. Yopu just watch the wazzer til you can't see it no more walk to that point and wait til the next one comes along

 

[Somerford]

Still extracting….

 

[Nannysbees]

Second time of putting a test frame in blossom. Can't find a queen no eggs for the past two weeks bees very flighty and no drawn out cells!!!!! Hoping that they would so we could buy a queen ready for winter but again yesterday cells capped over. Contacted a queen supplier and they will run out early this week. If they have a virgin queen doubtful if she'll mate at this late date, not a drone to be found in the other three hives.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Second time of putting a test frame in blossom. Can't find a queen no eggs for the past two weeks bees very flighty and no drawn out cells!!!!! Hoping that they would so we could buy a queen ready for winter but again yesterday cells capped over. Contacted a queen supplier and they will run out early this week. If they have a virgin queen doubtful if she'll mate at this late date, not a drone to be found in the other three hives.

Time to leave them to it

 

[pargyle]

Second time of putting a test frame in blossom. Can't find a queen no eggs for the past two weeks bees very flighty and no drawn out cells!!!!! Hoping that they would so we could buy a queen ready for winter but again yesterday cells capped over. Contacted a queen supplier and they will run out early this week. If they have a virgin queen doubtful if she'll mate at this late date, not a drone to be found in the other three hives.

Just because there are no eggs and you can't see the queen does not mean she's not there. You do get brood breaks at this time of the year .. have you been treating for varroa and what did you use ? Some treatments are notorious for putting queens off laying for a while ... if they are not building queen cells then they think they have a queen in residence. Dani is right - best leave them to get on with it at this point in the season. They will survive or not ... some colonies just have a death wish and if it's one of those you just waste effort trying to help them.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Time to leave them to it

Autumn brood breaks are common, but regardless of that, you are depending on chance with whatever you do, so time to let them get on with whatever they're doing - good or bad

 

[Nannysbees]

Yes you're right, I think we've exhausted everything so it's over to them and we'll see what happens

 

[Nannysbees]

Just because there are no eggs and you can't see the queen does not mean she's not there. You do get brood breaks at this time of the year .. have you been treating for varroa and what did you use ? Some treatments are notorious for putting queens off laying for a while ... if they are not building queen cells then they think they have a queen in residence. Dani is right - best leave them to get on with it at this point in the season. They will survive or not ... some colonies just have a death wish and if it's one of those you just waste effort trying to help them.

Completed apiguard treatment about a week ago. Going to leave them to it now