What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Nannysbees]

Any idea what this is?

 

[Anduril]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stictoleptura_rubra

 

[Erichalfbee]

Any idea what this is?

Yes Anduril has it. Red brown longhorn beetle.

 

[Paulypaul]

Hot bees, last night.
First hot bearding of the season.

 

[The Poot]

Any idea what this is?

I had several of these emerge from logs stored in my garage today…..

 

[pargyle]

Yes Anduril has it. Red brown longhorn beetle.

Strange that ... nothing like its name !

 

[drex]

3 weeks ago I thought I had a classic supercedure . One QC, on face of comb , old queen laying ( very slow) . Left them to it.
Today that cell is still intact (no flappy lid), emerged emergency cells, with other cells open on their side, no eggs. Presume there is a virgin in there. Put in frame of eggs. What happened? I don't know, but think they are on top of it.

 

[The Poot]

Checked three colonies for swarm signs and none found - two had previously been split, one had an introduced bought in queen.
Fourth one is (I hope) in the throes of making a queen, so only checked the supers.
Brood areas have nectar stashed, ready to be moved up again I hope.
Supers are filling but the Spring honey element has largely been eaten in some and not capped in others. Frustrating.
I have all bar two supers on the hives now and the stacks are tall. There’s a good flow on, so I reckon the capping of ripe honey will be a lesser priority for the bees, compared to storing fresh stuff. Again, frustrating!

 

[JamezF]

My father-in-law told me this morning that he'd been "attacked" by a bee from one of my home hives yesterday. After some discussion it transpired that he'd been wandering around close to the hives in the middle of the day whilst the bees were hanging outside trying to keep the colonies cool and working like crazy! If I'm honest I'm surprised it wasn't more than one. I'm really struggling to have much sympathy on this occasion.

James

 

[Moobee]

What does scout bee action look like? I have a hive in the home apiary that's been set up as a bait hive (previously used brood box, solid floor, manky old bit of comb, lemon grass on a tissue, south facing small entrance etc) with not a sniff of action until this afternoon when about 20 bees were buzzing round the entrance and popping in and out (even though it's been quite breezy). Possible swarm on it's way?

 

[The Poot]

What does scout bee action look like? I have a hive in the home apiary that's been set up as a bait hive (previously used brood box, solid floor, manky old bit of comb, lemon grass on a tissue, south facing small entrance etc) with not a sniff of action until this afternoon when about 20 bees were buzzing round the entrance and popping in and out (even though it's been quite breezy). Possible swarm on it's way?

Sounds promising- the question is - is it one of yours?

 

[Moobee]

Sounds promising- the question is - is it one of yours?

Shouldn't be, last inspection a week ago was all good. If it is, they'll only be flying about 6 feet and I guess at least I get to keep my bees!

 

[The Poot]

Shouldn't be, last inspection a week ago was all good. If it is, they'll only be flying about 6 feet and I guess at least I get to keep my bees!

I had one last year that left the hive and went straight into the bait hive opposite - about twenty yards away, witnessed by my wife.

 

[Erichalfbee]

What does scout bee action look like? I have a hive in the home apiary that's been set up as a bait hive (previously used brood box, solid floor, manky old bit of comb, lemon grass on a tissue, south facing small entrance etc) with not a sniff of action until this afternoon when about 20 bees were buzzing round the entrance and popping in and out (even though it's been quite breezy). Possible swarm on it's way?

They buzz in and out and circle the hive. Repeatedly. The numbers of investigating bees increase over a couple of days. If you are watching and suddenly there aren’t any bees there take a seat and wait a few minutes to watch the show. With luck you hear them first. I love it and have a bait hive that succeeds every year.

 

[JamezF]

They buzz in and out and circle the hive. Repeatedly. The numbers of investigating bees increase over a couple of days. If you are watching and suddenly there aren’t any bees there take a seat and wait a few minutes to watch the show. With luck you hear them first. I love it and have a bait hive that succeeds every year.

Agreed. It's a fantastic thing to witness.

James

 

[pargyle]

Shoolboy error .. the weak hive that I was going to have a closer look at ...when I put it back together last night one frame must have been sitting proud and when I put the super back I didn't notice that there was a bee sized gap between the brood box and the super.

The inevitable result ... half the apiary looking at the opportunity for a free meal.

Fortunately, the gap was only big enough for one bee at a time to try and get in and the small, but very valiant, colony were easily keeping the opportunists at bay !

Bee suit on and the problem was quickly resolved but I thought it would be wise to leave things to settle down rather than opening them up for an inspection and open up the food bank for all comers !

Perhaps tomorrow ....

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

I've used vertical splits for swarm control this season and it has worked well. I followed K and D Basterfield's version. K and D said that they generally didn't bother removing all cells except one in the upper (queenless) box and found that it didn't result in swarms. So I tried that, just once, in the final colony I split this season. I had a look in yesterday after ten days and found two dozen cells about to pop. I didn't know if one virgin had already emerged so I followed Wally Shaw's trick of releasing all the virgins ('the more the merrier'). I counted about 20. Some flew up to get away from workers, others disappeared into the frames, and others were killed pretty quickly. I don't know if one survived or if one was already present. Wally says he has never lost a swarm in this situation.

Come to think of it, he didn't actually say the colony got a mated queen out of this melee!

It's a nice colony so I rescued one queen, submerged the cage in syrup, and released her at the entrance of my one queenless (I think) colony. I'll be interested to see what happens there.

 

[gregior]

Checked 8 of mine that were waiting for virgins to mate, 6 had laying q's and the ones I saw looked really well mated. Had a peep in the supers of all my colonies and they,ve really been piling it in during the nice weather earlier in the week,,flow has slowed right down now as it's cool and windy but it gives them a chance to ripen the nectar so hopefully will be doing some extracting next week and getting the empties back on ready for the balsam.

 

[philipm]

Got home today from North Wales and my neighbour rung to say there was a swarm in a Budliea bush on the side of the farm yard.Went up and had a look, lovely swarm at chest hieght,by the time I had gone home put on my beesuit put a box in the wheel barrow and wheeled it up the road they had gone.Think they knew I was coming.

 

[madasafish]

I make up nucs to sell to beginners.. to supplement honey sales (a good thing this year!)
Early May I made up twp nucs using capped brood from the horrible hive I was "donated",Necessity.. rather than want.
Unfortunately the emerged capped brood turned out to be even more evil than the parent hive and
they have been unsaleable. One is now growing better but the other is vile, attack mode and following when nuc is opened. Lost patience: did an artificial swarm: Q plus capped brood and as many nurse bees - all nice tempered to 20 meters away. Old evil flying bees left on site in wooden nuc and fed 250ml or thereabouts of E10 petrol this 7am
No more nasty bees.