What did you do in the Apiary today?

[tonybloke]

added another super to each of my hives, one for room, one for honey

 

[herefordshirehoney]

Had taster day following on from beginners course. Opened two hives, first one was jam packed on every frame and overflowing out of hive and into feeder super. Amazing that they hadn't swarmed and no signs, Colin says the strain he's got are good (I'm getting my nucs from him). This was later suppered. Second hive was roughly 7 frames 3 of with fully laid, again not far from needing a super.

Lots of oil seed rape coming in, dusted yellow heads and jam packed with nectar in both hives. Overall really goor taster can't wait to get my bees now.

 

[abi-e]

Checked on the feed in the nuc box - needs more, then I got stung through my gauntlets whilst faffing around trying to fit a super back into a castellated spacer - Think I prefer the plastic spacers after all! The bees were grumpy and still need a full inspection of the brood.

 

[YorkshireBees]

Spent most of the day in 1 out apiary.

Glorious weather meant heavy bee traffic, I was amazed how fast they fly over to the nearest OSR, which appears to be finally giving a very good flow.

Added another super to each of the hives, the best has now 3 all being filled!

Demaree'd 2 hives and went double brood on 2 other hives.

Transferred the small colony from a polynuc to a brood box now they had built up big enough.

Hoping for some more decent weather to check the other out apiary tomorrow!

 

[Alphakillpestie]

I finally started to move my hives and new swarms to the new out apiary, there is OSR nearby so I hope to build them up for the main flow any extra crop will be a bonus. Two colonies today and the rest by the end of the week

 

[AndreaW]

(yesterday) went through BB to see whether still had clipped queen or whether hah already swarmed and lost her as colony had lots of sealed qc.

No clipped queen but found virgin! Still lots of swarm cells, did an AS with virgin queen in new BB and left 3 queen cells (I know should be max of 2 but advice of mentor) in old BB. Waiting to check for secondary swarms.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Nice photo MA,

Is that a BeeHiveSplies 14X12, and if so what is your impression of them?

No, its a P****s, and I'm very happy with them

 

[sunshinemedic]

Inspected my hives. This time last year they had a super of honey each. Today no stores at all! Also found that the girls have licked the marking off both of my queens. Maybe they had noting else to do on rainy days.

 

[Dilligaf]

Extended the paving under my WBC so that I can fit the National that I have built to put my swarm into next to it.
The usually vet placid colony in the WBC did not like being moved while I did the work. I have never seen so many bees come out of that hive in such a short time.
I have just been informed that I have put the WBC on the wrong side of the slab. But seeing as my bee suit is in the washing machine at the moment, It can bloody well stay there.

 

[Mike a]

Swarm Crazy

Five calls today for help
Two calls were bees in chimneys, one call to help A/S a colony just in time (Queen found and moved to a new hive) lots of sealed queen cells and collected what I think is likely to be a cast swarm as the house owner watched a much bigger swarm fly over their garden on Friday.

Got a cracking headache so off to lay down in a dark room for 2-3 hours before I go back to collect the nuc.

 

[theeggman]

Inspected today (8 days since last one) 8ish Qcells. S**t back to house to reread pagdon method and a cup of tea.
Tea over up to bee shed to collect all required boxes etc. (all prepared in advance) . Did A/S no problem no smoke required. Walking back to bee shed O.H. was checking me over for passengers and noticed that after tea I'd forgotten to rezip my veil. .
I've left 2 Qcells with larva present( I think that's right.)

Tim

P.S. Spotted a worker that we marked in error 7 weeks ago is still a house bee. 1st. time queen marking.

 

[user 6228]

two days ... gone from starvig to needing second super ... 9kg in two days

bees are bringiing OSR from 2km away... plus dayglo dandellion... stavartion next week in the weather forecast

 

[YorkshireBees]

Inspected 2nd out apiary,

2 hives demareed, 1 other hive onto double brood and added a super to 2 hives.

I now have upto 3 supers on some hives and they are filling them fast from the OSR.

On the otherside I have 2-3 colonies still slowly building up and not touching their 1st super.

At least I have a good idea which bees to breed from.

** And just to confuse me I found a very small patch of brood in the bottom of a couple of frames in the 1st super above the queen excluder in a couple of hives but also found the queen in the brood box!!??

 

[TOBY-3652]

Asd largest colonie 7 queen cells of wich 2 were sealed queen still present so not too bad and sitting here making 20 brood frames up

 

[Gardenbees]

Inspections today with a view to splitting large colony. However, found no sign of recent queen activity and no Q cells or cups. Either she is off laying still (she stopped during the bad weather) or they are queenless. Behaviour suggests the former, but I put a test frame in just in case.

Two hives from last weekend's split are busy and purposeful, but the new colony's queen cell has yet to hatch (or has been re-sealed?). Hopefully she'll either hatch, or, if already gone, return mated soon. The parent colony had no eggs, plus a big, obvious supercedure cell. Either I damaged their Q in the split, or they were fed up with her anyway. Darn. Another waiting period. And they were so good last w/e as well! Just when I was thinking I'd had the perfect AS. Fatal thought! Now to cross fingers for good weather for the mating flights.

 

[Queens59]

Inspected all 4 hives. 1 issued a swarm within 20 minutes of my returning home so re-housed that too.

2 hives with no QCs and happy bees, 1 had swarmed and the other 8 QCs - so gave them more room in the hope that they calm down...

We shall see, but 6 stings after 6.5 weeks away? A bit mean I think...

 

[psafloyd]

Not in the colonies for just over a week, but got in yesterday. Loads of queen cells in my second colony while my first colony had at least one sealed QC. Got myself ready to AS but ran out of time last night.
Today, AS of the one with capped QC, which had become plural overnight. Lot of bees hanging around outside the hive at 0930, making me think they were ready to go, despite HM merrily laying...
Finished by 0950 and went off to do something else. Back at 1100 and the air was full of bees. They alighted two plots down in a sycamore in about seven clumps on different branches.
Necessity being the mother of invention, I grabbed a floor, super, crown board and roof and shook them in. Seemed happy to go in and they were fanning away.
Went back to look at my split colony and it was full of bees. Looked in the other half and still there. Assumed my other colony had swarmed (was a swarm last year) but when I looked, seemed to be there. Wrong color anyway, as most of those girls are quite dark, nit tigers like this swarm.
Hoping it could be a swarm fro somewhere else, but I think it unlikely. Bound to be my bees. Will look tomorrow to see if this swarm has stuck around and what the source may have been.
Quick look at nuc at other site shows it has almost doubled in a few weeks. Must inspect properly ASAP.
Returned at 2000 to close up the box and move it back to my plot. Left it so bees can start getting out after a while in the morning.

 

[rae]

Saw a big swarm going past the house, spent half the afternoon up a precarious ladder in a hawthorn hedge. Got them back to the apiary, then inspected the likely hive - the one with the unsealed queen cell that we didn't have time to AS yesterday. But they were all present and correct, cell still unsealed. So not our swarm! Anyway, it is hived, and the hive that was about to swarm is now ASd.

In addition, the hive that went swarmy very early in the year was split into two. Both the splits now have mated queens. No idea how, because it was hooning with rain and freezing cold for about 3 weeks here.

 

[Mike a]

Went back last night after dark to seal up the entrance and remove the nuc and found the whole front face of the nuc was half an inch thick in bees. They were all aligned looking straight up and seemed more than happy. The cluster I collected wasn't that big and I know I only used a 6 frame poly nuc but they couldn't all get in, only thing I can think of is either -

• There was a second cluster some where very local and they moved to the nuc after I left in the afternoon
• The swarm had thousands of bees out scouting at the time so by the time I returned they couldn't all get in the nuc
• A large percentage came back out from nuc so they could get on with drawing out the frames but they weren't noisy.

So going back this morning before it starts raining about midday to have a quick look and taking a bigger hive just in case.

 

[TOBY-3652]

where to start... AS 2 more colonies 15 queen cells in one 2 sealed queen still present.. next one 7 queen cells none sealed queen also present took a nuc off each one. 1 more colonie had cups with eggs in. then extracted 45 lb of honey off 2 hives.how people manage with lots of hives i dont know