What did you do in the Apiary today?

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Lovely mild sunny day. Been cleaning up frames ready for recycling. LLoads of bees flying, mainly orientation flights but a few foraging, presumably for water. All colonies active, so all alive so far.
 
Helped vape 12 Association hives in 75 minutes. (Conventional heaters x2)
 
Vaped all mine today using my new Gasvap so much easier than lugging a heavy battery around and no need to remove entrance blocks to vape. Boy do they get hot though,got burnt even with my leather beekeeping gloves on.
 
Moved the colony off the potting shed roof
Now sun is out and some of the others in the apiary quarter of a mile away are flying.
Don’t seem to be any returnees fifteen minutes later.
 
Checked a couple of nucs today adding fondant and emptying some dregs of syrup, Zero brood fyi!
 
Vaped the bees. All colonies emitted an irritated buzz which was reassuring. Tidied up the dead bodies from the ufe’s. Reasonable number from each hive were out & flying. Wished them a Happy Christmas!
 
Trickled 68 colonies (26 of mine plus 10 belonging to one friend and 32 to another one) with OA . Colonies all quite strong and with plenty of stores apart from a couple. No losses yet and the smoker wasn't needed although one colony a bit defensive but decided not to light smoker just for that one. Working as a team we were treating one colony every three minutes
 
Last edited:
Beautiful sunny day, almost 58 F degrees . (14 C?) Took a peek in my 4 hives and gave each a small grease patty. Wind chill Tomorrow night expected to be 3 F degrees with wind gusts to 26 mph. Brr! I'll drape towels or blankets to block some of the wind. I have polystyrene hives so the bees should stay toasty warm. But I still worry. This is my first winter with bees.
 
Hasn't stopped raining since dawn, bees cossetted away in the hives or so I thought, went to brush a few dead bees off the landing board of one colony and two guard bees were out faster than I could say Happy new year ... retreated and left them to it ! I can live without the last sting of the year... hefted a few, still heavy. It's wet but very mild today down here.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top