What did you do in the Apiary today?

[MuswellMetro]

Rain was predicted to arrive at 8:00 but did not arrive until 12:00 so having seen how little liquid stores the hives that i inspected yesterday had, i decided to heft all the other hives

After hefting them , i found them very light so decided to feed almost every one ,gave about 1ltre of 50% syrup or on one diluted honey i extracted from their own bailey change frames

just to tide them over, weather forecast looks grim and they are all full of Nurse Bees from the March warm spell, could easily starve

 

[Luminos]

Horizontal rain and gales here. Went to Limoges and bought a bee book

 

[psafloyd]

Pissing down. Not fair.

 

[susbees]

Finally got into the Commercials today. Most coping and all with good brood nests (if one or two backfilling with nectar as haven't been able to get into them for weeks.

The autumn following hive is still following so that's one up for reQ: non-native brood pattern too (Welsh swarm...)

Out of the lot only one odd-looking possible supersedure cell in one hive and a hopeful full box of bees with polished pollen and brood cells...waiting to see if the apiary vicinity mating happened...

 

[FreeFall]

Nothing going on as lashing with rain all day.

Got a swarm call this morning, asked a few questions and it sounded like bumble bees. Had her send a pic from her phone which confirmed it was.

 

[Cazza]

Just found the crown of thorns I lost two weeks ago......attached to the heel of my wellies. Could have been very painful. I feel lucky today!
Cazza

 

[drstitson]

shovelled a dustpan full of torpid bees back into their hive.

adjusted alignment of boxes on a vertical AS set-up as hadn't put them on quite right during the downpours on Sun.

painted some poly hive bits.

 

[Mike a]

Finally a break in the weather.

Had to rehome a few colonies into bigger hives, found a queenless hive so gave them a queencell on a frame with eggs, but the most interesting
part of my apiary visit was look in my monster hive.

Last year

roof -super-super-14x12-bs national-QX-14x12

Just before Winter (Early December when they stopped flying) I had got them down into 14x12 + BS National and removed the QX.
Today I found HM is laying across 8 of the 14x12 frames and 9 of the BS National frames in a giant rugby ball shape, plenty
of stores lovely frame of pollen in both chambers.
So far they show no signs of swarming. So I've given them a super to draw out.

 

[hallshoney]

the sun came out this afternoon so went through the hives that most likely to swarm thankfully nothing and of course more feeding.

 

[Les]

Added some more feed - waiting for some warm weather

 

[victor meldrew]

Bees going ballistic here in the frozen North
Pollen and nectar being brought back so many bees out of each hive it looked as though they were swarming
VM

 

[Chris Luck]

Bees going ballistic here in the frozen North
Pollen and nectar being brought back so many bees out of each hive it looked as though they were swarming

Same here in the frozen south, sun came out, temperature reached 16 and OSR frenzy broke out.

Chris

 

[YorkshireBees]

Bees going ballistic here in the frozen North
Pollen and nectar being brought back so many bees out of each hive it looked as though they were swarming
VM

Was surprised to see bees still working OSR at 19:30 this evening, guess they are taking every chance they can!

Weighed hive once they stopped. Gain 300-400grams in 2 days, thank goodness it is going back up again!

 

[adrian wilford]

grafted 30 larve into cell cups, lets hope they take will find out in 8 days!!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Loads - at Chris B's - the full account to follow

 

[oliver90owner]

... lets hope they take ....

... and get mated ...

Hope May is not as bad as forecasted. If it is, it will be worse than last year.

 

[Goodwood]

morning everyone
After last nights weather forecast I went down to my hives last night to close the entrances down a fair bit.
Nearly all were quiet - which one would expect at 11-30pm
However, on one polyhive - the most active of 4 thriving Nucs I bought last month - there were a group of about 10 bees just outside the entrance madly fanning away.
I put my hand down to gently push them to one side so as to enable me to partially plug up the slot with a bit of poly, but I was taken aback by the draft of warm air coming out of the hive. Is this normal at nearly midnight in April? It worried me then that I might be causing an imbalance by further reducing the access...
Any observations?
edit:
this hive - a nuc just 3-4 weeks ago - went into a ****** poly st away and then had a super added 2 weeks ago which was full of bees yesterday afternoon
bees have been very busy with all sorts of pollen being carted in
I am considering adding a second brood box soon to this hive in view of their rocket trajectory so far.
pps
It was 7 degrees at 11-30pm last night and dry
Yesterday afternoon peaked at 18 degrees - a mainly sunny day
now very wet and 5.5 degrees...

 

[YorkshireBees]

morning everyone
After last nights weather forecast I went down to my hives last night to close the entrances down a fair bit.
Nearly all were quiet - which one would expect at 11-30pm
However, on one polyhive - the most active of 4 thriving Nucs I bought last month - there were a group of about 10 bees just outside the entrance madly fanning away.
I put my hand down to gently push them to one side so as to enable me to partially plug up the slot with a bit of poly, but I was taken aback by the draft of warm air coming out of the hive. Is this normal at nearly midnight in April? It worried me then that I might be causing an imbalance by further reducing the access...
Any observations?
edit:
this hive - a nuc just 3-4 weeks ago - went into a ****** poly st away and then had a super added 2 weeks ago which was full of bees yesterday afternoon
bees have been very busy with all sorts of pollen being carted in
I am considering adding a second brood box soon to this hive in view of their rocket trajectory so far.

I am assuming you had half decent weather yesterday? Mine were foraging OSR like mad and when they had settled I could hear the quit hum from the hive. My guess would be that they are reducing the water content of nectar collected ie Normal after a good days Nectar collecting (even in April). My hives are all on OMF's and have a narrow entrance still. If you on OMF's then reducing the entrance shouldn't really make a difference. Besides even on solid floors they will probably not bee much fanning going on in the predicted weather over the next few days!

 

[Goodwood]

thanks Yorkshire - useful info.
Yes - yesterday was a good day - not much wind - warm and sunny
I was initially worried about the S'Easterly gales we had forecast, but then my concern turned to overheating them by restricting the entrance- stupid maybe, especially in view of today's weather.
Yes - all with OMF's.
Nearest OSR is about 2 miles away although I see the occasional bee with a yellow head.
pollen here - think its mainly dandelion, blackthorn and some Camelia (still !)

 

[MJBee]

Sat and watched the rain persisting down when I should have been out setting up a queen cell raising colony ready for jenter cell transfer today.

Quess what, it is cold windy and raining today too Looks like the first round of queen raising is going to be a failure.

Note to self - In future check weather forecast for the start of the cycle rather than the mating end