What did you do in the Apiary today?

[JamezF]

Inspected the colonies in the home apiary this afternoon. A right sweat-fest it was.

One colony is pretty stroppy, but that could be down to having an unmated queen, or possibly no queen at all. I'll give them another week and if there's still no sign of eggs drop a frame brood/eggs in. Found and marked two new queens.

Also swapped the bait hive floors for UFEs in two occupied hives. A third bait hive I opened up to find occupied by at most a few hundred workers. No sign of a queen anywhere so I guess they're just going through the motions. I'm half-tempted to swap the bait hive for one of the boxes I have that needs repairing and redeploy the original elsewhere.

The colony living in the double brood of wild comb is still showing no sign of moving up into the new box that I put on top. I think a different plan is called for.

And whilst I have been typing this, another swarm has turned arrived, setting up their bivouac in a hedge about six feet from our front door. Gah! At least I'd not got to the point of putting my bee suit in the wash yet.

James

 

[Swarm]

I‘m hoping for the best for you.
I‘m in that interim period of waiting for queens to emerge and mate on three colonies. Frustrating isn’t it?

Yep.
Since May 7th, I have twenty three in that interim period. First lot should have emerged, the last one was split on Monday so due for cell reduction in a few days. I also found a single, charged cell in another colony on Monday so I left that develop and checked again today. Still just the one, plenty of eggs and the queen, I might look again on Friday but will probably leave them to it, Mother and Grandmother were superseded.
Stark contrast compared with last year when none made swarm preparations.
Added supers as there is no let up in this Hawthorn flow.

 

[StephenT]

Just clearing a super each on two hives to extract tonight and stick back on tomorrow morning. Thought that 4 supers per hive would be ample but far from it this year. Need to knock up a few more with foundation.

 

[user 819]

Re organised a hive and stand at my out apiary with the shaking cbpv colony , Q has not long come in to lay (no sealed brood yet) following them having swarmed back in April some time .
10" high stand with full skirt to the ground , empty BB and a eke with entrance and the BB and bees plonked on top.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Harvested 32 cells a mixture of swarm supersedure and 18 grafted cells my incubator is looking pretty full at the moment,
One of the home sites I’ve demaree one colony also one had swarmed into a stack of supers so I’ve sorted them out and the swarmed colony .
Frame making for England!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Frame making for England!

A bee farmer’s work is never done

 

[Curly green finger's]

A bee farmer’s work is never done

Nope starting at 6am tomorrow I’m splitting 18 demaree for starters.
I was out looking at hives at 715am today

 

[madasafish]

Quick inspection of the swarm that arrived in my garden bait hive last week. Could not find queen but eggs and RJ so a mated queen. (on three jumbo lang frames. Q likely on side wall adjacent to frame with eggs,

 

[Dr. Abe]

I checked a couple of my larger hives and was disappointed to find little to no wax built up and no honey stored in the medium supers I added for honey.

The hives are double deeps with at least 14 frames full of brood and great populations. I have not seen any signs of health issues except sometimes extra bees walking around the entrance and in front of the hive.

Is it normal to not be getting lots of nectar when locusts, blackberries, raspberries, and some clovers are in full bloom?
I guess what I am wondering is whether there could be some other problem. (Maybe my patience!)

Also, I'm not sure how plentiful the nectar is right now. Is it possible to tell the nectar supply by how much fresh honey is coming in?

 

[Peter Vanstone]

I had similar last year with a swarm on a fence post that I think had been there a while so lots of queen pheromone present. Had to smoke them off the post (as had about half in a nuc & the rest wouldn’t budge) & then heavily smoke the post to confuse them enough to head to where the queen actually was.

 

[Curly green finger's]

I checked a couple of my larger hives and was disappointed to find little to no wax built up and no honey stored in the medium supers I added for honey.

The hives are double deeps with at least 14 frames full of brood and great populations. I have not seen any signs of health issues except sometimes extra bees walking around the entrance and in front of the hive.

Is it normal to not be getting lots of nectar when locusts, blackberries, raspberries, and some clovers are in full bloom?
I guess what I am wondering is whether there could be some other problem. (Maybe my patience!)

Also, I'm not sure how plentiful the nectar is right now. Is it possible to tell the nectar supply by how much fresh honey is coming in?

If you are inspecting in the day time you should see nectar in cells in the brood boxes which they will move up at night ? Also are you using a qx some times they won’t pass through them so perhaps remove it for a week or two.
If there is a honey flow on you should be able to smell the hives which will also be humming in the evening .

 

[Dr. Abe]

If you are inspecting in the day time you should see nectar in cells in the brood boxes which they will move up at night ? Also are you using a qx some times they won’t pass through them so perhaps remove it for a week or two.
If there is a honey flow on you should be able to smell the hives which will also be humming in the evening .

Thanks you! I am not using a qx at least for now.

 

[Nannysbees]

Glorious day for an inspection.
Found and marked the swarm queen didn't clip her wing, didn't want to push my luck of them rejecting her. She's a beauty, huge and very dark, Found loads of eggs, very calm colony
Saw both the bought queens. Stupid me though, only opened one of the gates, didn't realise had to open the two as one exit is too narrow for the queen to escape!!!!! Lesson learned. Took off 14 frames of capped honey and one brood frame of stores to give them some room, resource overload, im thinking I should have removed more for the freezer, I'll keep an eye on it. All in all though, delighted. Still a question mark over the hive with an emerging queen .

 

[Erichalfbee]

Smell of hawthorn from the hives is overwhelming. Nothing much capped yet…… it’s coming in too fast.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Smell of hawthorn from the hives is overwhelming. Nothing much capped yet…… it’s coming in too fast.

I’m extracting early this year in two weeks hopefully, boxes are being banked and I’m down to my last 30 supers oh 40 if you count the 10 flat pack ones .

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Smell of hawthorn from the hives is overwhelming. Nothing much capped yet…… it’s coming in too fast.

never fear - it's starting to go over, so not long to go............

 

[Cuckmere couple]

extracting on sunday as BH weekend and OSR has gone over....

added some spare drawing pins on roof of hives today

 

[Erichalfbee]

never fear - it's starting to go over, so not long to go............

Yes. Thank heavens really. Another week or so.
BUT I’ve seen clover out!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

you can always tell when the May blossom is coming to an end - you will notice the flowers on that particular bush tend to take on a pinkish hue.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Having a rejig tomorrow or Saturday of one of the mating apiarys.
I have one apiary with 38 colony’s time to move some to new sites.