What did you do in the Apiary today?

[gregior]

Impossible to go into the hives at the moment,11c strong winds and heavy rain, I have lots of hives that were split 8 days ago so need to thin out Q cells and am going to have to do it in terrible weather during a really bad nectar dearth. Not looking forwards to that atall! Guessing some of the lighter colonies will be getting very hungry-again!

 

[madasafish]

Impossible to go into the hives at the moment,11c strong winds and heavy rain, I have lots of hives that were split 8 days ago so need to thin out Q cells and am going to have to do it in terrible weather during a really bad nectar dearth. Not looking forwards to that atall! Guessing some of the lighter colonies will be getting very hungry-again!

Similar conditions here. - only 30 odd miles away.
Too cold to extract: 8C at night., 12-14C days..
Queen rearing not fun.

 

[The Poot]

Impossible to go into the hives at the moment,11c strong winds and heavy rain, I have lots of hives that were split 8 days ago so need to thin out Q cells and am going to have to do it in terrible weather during a really bad nectar dearth. Not looking forwards to that atall! Guessing some of the lighter colonies will be getting very hungry-again!

I have to go queen cell hunting on Friday and the forecast is rain, rain, rain.
The brambles are opening and like last year the weather is a little negative for foraging. Sigh.

 

[StephenT]

Expanded a single brood box hive to double brood but with 16 dummied down frames. Requeened them a few weeks ago and she needs the space although the weather this week is not going to good for colony expansion given their stores situation was a little light.

 

[madasafish]

Trying Jenter# system as opposed to NIcot or grafting (not very good)
Set up my Jenter system yesterday. Feeding donor double nuc as no flow.
Eggs today.
So far so good.

# £11 on offer from Amazon vs £72 from Bee Equipment. seems ok. some fits dubious but usable. with gaffer tape.

Had to trawl internet to find instructions..

 

[Cuckmere couple]

marked some nice looking queens that have recently mated

waiting on a few more

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

Had a look in the observation hive in my garden shed. I started this colony without a queen this year and was disappointed that there was still no brood. No stores either. I had a good look and found a laying queen. caught her in the act. But it looks like the bees are consuming the eggs - presumably because of lack of stores / forage.

I've upgraded the feeder to something larger and more efficient and given them a frame of honey from another hive.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

This is my seventh frame of grafts this year, and my first from a 12-frame queenless nuc, VERY full of bees, with no open brood when the cells were inserted. These cells are significantly larger than any of my previous batches. Presumably (or maybe just possibly) a good thing?

 

[Colonial]

My colony was making moves to swarm, so I've just done a Queenright Nuc split, leaving some QCs in the parent hive to develop. I'll check them in a week and select the strongest/most popular sealed QC to retain, removing the rest. Every day is a learning day!

 

[gregior]

Checked 3 colonies with virgins, wasn't too hopeful with the weather the way it's been but surprisingly 2 of them are mated!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

My colony was making moves to swarm, so I've just done a Queenright Nuc split, leaving some QCs in the parent hive to develop. I'll check them in a week and select the strongest/most popular sealed QC to retain, removing the rest. Every day is a learning day!

deal with the QCs now rather than later or rue the day as the colony swarms itself to a standstill

 

[Sutty]

On 31st May I found sealed queen cells in a hive I had thought had already superseded som while before. I nuced the queen and went back on the 6th and removed "all" the emergency queen cells and found the selected queen cell in the act of emerging. I was expecting to just leave them to it for a few weeks.
Today (11th) I witnessed a swarm issue from the hive and pitch conveniently about 12m away.
While they were getting settled I went through the hive and of course found another sealed QC, though I also found a couple of very small open ones and one very long open one (looked nearly 5cm!). Also the emerged cell.
Not wanting to increase colony numbers and wanting to maintain a big colony for the imminent flow I destroyed all the QCs, collected the swarm and dumped it back into the hive.
Hopefully this will sort them but the timelines for today's few open cells seem very strange.
Any bright ideas what's going on? Were the open cells from the last eggs laid on the 31st? Seems a long while ago to have any open cells!
No other brood seen except a bit of capped sealed brood mainly drone.
Edit: maybe there have been a few laying workers & they have tried to make cells from their drone larvae, it would explain the extra-long cell too.

 

[Garry R]

I was just curious to see what was in the bamboo canes in my bee hotel so split one open and there were balls of bright yellow pollen inside. There seemed to be a number of bees flying in and out but not sure if these were bees hatching. Anyhow thought I would share the photo.

 

[The Poot]

Gave some syrup to a nuc. Watched activity at a bait hive….

 

[Sutty]

On 31st May I found sealed queen cells in a hive I had thought had already superseded som while before. I nuced the queen and went back on the 6th and removed "all" the emergency queen cells and found the selected queen cell in the act of emerging. I was expecting to just leave them to it for a few weeks.
Today (11th) I witnessed a swarm issue from the hive and pitch conveniently about 12m away.
While they were getting settled I went through the hive and of course found another sealed QC, though I also found a couple of very small open ones and one very long open one (looked nearly 5cm!). Also the emerged cell.
Not wanting to increase colony numbers and wanting to maintain a big colony for the imminent flow I destroyed all the QCs, collected the swarm and dumped it back into the hive.
Hopefully this will sort them but the timelines for today's few open cells seem very strange.
Any bright ideas what's going on? Were the open cells from the last eggs laid on the 31st? Seems a long while ago to have any open cells!
No other brood seen except a bit of capped sealed brood mainly drone.
Edit: maybe there have been a few laying workers & they have tried to make cells from their drone larvae, it would explain the extra-long cell too.

Anyone??

 

[Antipodes]

Anyone??

The extra long cell is probably a dud, like you say. I have a photo I took of one of them somewhere. They do make queen cells from dud larva/larvae, so possibly you are seeing them and it seems likely/possible you missed a queen cell initially - one hidden a bit?

 

[Antipodes]

Anyone??

Here they are. Totally unviable queen cells. Extra long, and from memory, either empty or with a blackened, dead grub inside.

 

[Mint Bee]

Its nearly the middle of June.

very little surplus nectar being stored in supers
limited egg laying / brood break in some colonies
Queen rearing results negligible
immature drones being uncapped and removed

https://tenor.com/view/welcome-to-jazz-club-fast-show-the-fast-show-nice-jazz-club-gif-15971012

 

[Curly green finger's]

325pm just observed a queen coming back from her mating flight with the mating sign still attached to her she is a lovely black queen, oh what a feeling it doesn’t matter how many times I observe it it has made my day!

 

[Beth]

United a Q+ nuc with a Q- hive, fingers crossed they are happy to see each other when they chew through the paper. Plenty of nuc flying bees still about so will shake them in tomorrow depending upon weather. They got a small feed on to keep them going until then. It's far too cold to just shake them out.