What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Curly green finger's]

What kind of mini nuc is that?

Kieler

 

[elainemary]

Counted varroa mite drops from oxalic acid sublimation. Majority colonies less than 3 mites. 2 outliers though, each in different apiaries ; one with drop of 200 and one with 325. Wow really shows the benefit of following up with a winter treatment. Made me think however if I should repeat. I should repeat on these two!
Had a lovely start to the day, barn owl in the mist on the track above our place. Beautiful

 

[elainemary]

Doing my rounds today, feeding,hefting etc.

Photo of one of my grafted 2023 amms colony’s
Wintering in a mini nuc .
View attachment 38522
She is the daughter of one of John gettys queens .
I had 4 of his queens in 2021 and only one was good enough to rear from the others had chalk brood .

Nice black bees Mark. heard about the chalkbrood problem - good you have one you can rear from though.What are their temper traits and other characteristics like?

 

[Curly green finger's]

Nice black bees Mark. heard about the chalkbrood problem - good you have one you can rear from though.What are their temper traits and other characteristics like?

At mini nuc stage they are fine temper wise stable and slow on the frame all the workers are black and that particular mini nuc haven’t tutched the fondant either.
Mother JG4/2021 are ok border line compared to some of my others temp wise but expand into double brood and three/four supers .
You can have a virgin queen next year from JG4 if you want ?
I’m also looking to possibly swap queens if anyone is interested this season?
Open mated black queens with 100% black workers.

Waffle waffle…. I watched one colony flying today out of 80 odd they are in a single brood but covering pretty much all frames 6/7 three quarter frames of brood cappings on the inspection board after two weeks and I counted 40 odd varroa I vapped them two weeks ago before I broke up for xmas .

This colony are a 2022 black tan queen with all orange workers not a black one in sight they have been pretty active even in the autumn .
They were definitely looking/foraging for pollen I think today.

 

[elainemary]

At mini nuc stage they are fine temper wise stable and slow on the frame all the workers are black and that particular mini nuc haven’t tutched the fondant either.
Mother JG4/2021 are ok border line compared to some of my others temp wise but expand into double brood and three/four supers .
You can have a virgin queen next year from JG4 if you want ?
I’m also looking to possibly swap queens if anyone is interested this season?
Open mated black queens with 100% black workers.

Waffle waffle…. I watched one colony flying today out of 80 odd they are in a single brood but covering pretty much all frames 6/7 three quarter frames of brood cappings on the inspection board after two weeks and I counted 40 odd varroa I vapped them two weeks ago before I broke up for xmas .

This colony are a 2022 black tan queen with all orange workers not a black one in sight they have been pretty active even in the autumn .
They were definitely looking/foraging for pollen I think today.

Yes pls Mark re a swop next year.

Last couple of years I’ve been working with my nearest neighbours and all now are using black bees. Been trying a bit of drone flooding in my home apiary as it’s my most remote where I have the best chance of influencing drones and virgins.

Be good to swop a black queen each - happy with a virgin as helps re genetic diversity

 

[StephenT]

The nuc in the garden was down to about 2kg of stores and so put 1.3kg of fondant on. Looked rammed in there when I took the top off. Will weigh them again in a few weeks to see how they are getting on.

 

[rolande]

At mini nuc stage they are fine temper wise stable and slow on the frame

Do you find them to be calm on the comb when full size?

 

[Swarm]

Yes pls Mark re a swop next year.

Last couple of years I’ve been working with my nearest neighbours and all now are using black bees. Been trying a bit of drone flooding in my home apiary as it’s my most remote where I have the best chance of influencing drones and virgins.

Be good to swop a black queen each - happy with a virgin as helps re genetic diversity

Best option IMO, she brings her genetic diversity and will spread that through her drones. Mating at your location adds the local adaption.
Good luck both!

 

[Swarm]

Do you find them to be calm on the comb when full size?

I've never known runny bees with any stock from Jon's queens. We've had the odd colony that had mood swings but nothing untoward, vast majority were calm and placid.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Yes calm

Do you find them to be calm on the comb when full size?

mother colony are good even in colder bad weather inspections

 

[elainemary]

I've never known runny bees with any stock from Jon's queens. We've had the odd colony that had mood swings but nothing untoward, vast majority were calm and placid.

A wise old beekeeping friend told me runny bees are an AMM trait as harks back to the days of skeps when bees were regularly smoked out or even worse sulphurred to remove the honey. Made me think differently about runny bees.

 

[alancooper]

I've never known runny bees with any stock from Jon's queens. We've had the odd colony that had mood swings but nothing untoward, vast majority were calm and placid.

My experience is of excellent black Qs from Jon

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

A wise old beekeeping friend told me runny bees are an AMM trait as harks back to the days of skeps when bees were regularly smoked out or even worse sulphurred to remove the honey

 

[Brian Bush]

Finally felt well enough to treat most of the hives with OA by dribbling. 5 Apiaries, 20 hives and a 20 mile round trip.
I had lost 6 hives since my last visit. 5 were in NUC boxes. 3 of the five I did not expect to make it through any way, but two were on double 14x12 NUC boxes with plenty of stores. This loss dissappointed me. The other loss was a swarm that had taken up residence in an empty hive and spent the summer doing sweet FA.

 

[madasafish]

6C , sun shining and no rain: first for at least a week. And no wind..
Fed all nucs and the one mini nuc. All OK.
Hefted all 9 main colonies (8 lang, 1 National), All seem ok, one actually flying..(garden soaked so probably toilet flights). Checked a few under CB.. 3 or 4 very large colonies.
Moved one Lang nuc (double) 7 meters to new location in garden in preparation for moving to full hive in Spring.

I can now relax and ignore them for a fortnight.

 

[W0otz]

Went to the out apiary to carry out winter checks - one deadout, the other 2 seemingly ok. Gave them fresh fondant blocks before this supposed cold spell arrives.

Deadout looks like mites, and the colony simply dwindled until they were too small to keep warm. Not a huge amount to go on, but they had stores, no dead bees on the frames. Very small amount of dead sealed brood, all with damaged cappings and a couple of bees that died emerging. Remaining bees, very few, including the queen, dead on the floor. They were treated with apiguard in early September and I vaped the colonies in this apiary just before Christmas (though they may already have been gone).

 

[Swarm]

My experience is of excellent black Qs from Jon

We've never had a bad one and our group has had loads over the years. Calm on the comb, no chalk brood problems and no problem filling supers
The queen in the pic is one of Jon's and headed possibly the gentlest colony I've ever had. I have five generations of daughters from this one and the gentle nature continues.

 

[Hedgerow Honey]

Kieler

That's reminded me that I could do with ours coming back to us as will be needed soon, hopefully.

 

[Antipodes]

Went to the out apiary to carry out winter checks - one deadout, the other 2 seemingly ok. Gave them fresh fondant blocks before this supposed cold spell arrives.

Deadout looks like mites, and the colony simply dwindled until they were too small to keep warm. Not a huge amount to go on, but they had stores, no dead bees on the frames. Very small amount of dead sealed brood, all with damaged cappings and a couple of bees that died emerging. Remaining bees, very few, including the queen, dead on the floor. They were treated with apiguard in early September and I vaped the colonies in this apiary just before Christmas (though they may already have been gone).

I'm not looking forward to this mite thing. Shocking.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I'm not looking forward to this mite thing. Shocking.

in one way, you are lucky as all the groundwork has been done for you and that there are tried and tested methods if control out there, especially in Europe. What you musn't do is just sit there covering your eyes and ears waiting for the worst to happen but at the first sign of Varroa in your area, ignore the snake oil salesmen and anti treaters and start treating as, especially in the first few years the results of infestations will be catastrophic,