What did you do in the Apiary today?

[meidel]

Seems like I have spent all week in a bee suit...what's the betting if I take a day off they'll do something naughty?

chances are they will - a watched pot never boils

 

[AnotherNewBee]

Good luck with the weather then is all I can say

All we can do is hope. I'm not optimistic, though.

I'm on night shift this week so I should be able to get something organised if I can't do anything on Tuesday. It can't rain all week, can it...?

 

[Phayze]

had a quickish look through my hives and ive got larvae couldnt see queens but who cares im not queenless

 

[jackbee]

Sat with a cup of tea and just watched

loads of pollen - light yellow, yellow and orange - gonna look em up try and figure where they've been.

interesting to watch the few that over/undershoot - have a breather and then take off again to get in.

And they seem to come in waves - fairly clear for a bit then suddenly tons of them trying to get in.

Fascinated - could spend hours sitting there

And started building a stand with sloped landing board from some scrap wood I have - 60 degree seemed a bit steep so going to go for 45.

 

[Blue Spinnaker]

Amongst the countless other things it's teaching me, beekeeping is making me be patient!

Waiting and hoping my 2 virgin queens will go on mating flights.

Waiting....waiting.....being patient.....being patient.....

 

[Queens59]

One mating flight causing chaos - but the swarm in the tree is still in situ and seemingly happy. Had a quick look at a swarm from a chimney - HM not laying yet but I did see her parading across the bars...and didn't like to tell her but her bum is bright orange

 

[Cazza]

It's purple pollen time here. Gorgeous, from the Phacelia which self seeds faboulously.
Cazza

 

[meidel]

the dark pollen from the bees today round where we are, are from the papaver orientalis - bright orange poppies.

never mind the apiary, we had the heating on last night - this in June - is someone going to come along and tell us it's the coldest June in the last 100 years?

 

[tonybloke]

extracted 15ltr of honey today

 

[REDWOOD]

As doing OK others are thriving

 

[Polyanwood]

Sieving Bees.
One of the association members wanted to buy 2 queenless nucs from swarm central, where we are collecting the swarms. She had fancy queens that she wanted to introduce, so I sieved 2 nucs of bees to be completely sure they were queenless. One was a donated split and one was a swarm from last week. Interestingly I found 1 virgin just emerging and removed her, then another when I sieved the split. In the swarm, even though it only came in on the 29th, and I saw the dead queen, there was another virgin in that too.

 

[Poly Hive]

Scrubbed the mini nucs ready for action in a fortnight.

PH

 

[dpearce4]

im sure this is a stupid question but how do u sieve bees?

 

[oliver90owner]

Sieving Bees.

A swarm from only a week previously and she is going to introduce a fancy queen? Not too sensible, IMO, unless the provenance of the bees was known.

Hope she checks for queenless before introducing. Small queens going through excluders is not unknown!

 

[VEG]

went through my hives today got sbi visiting on thursday weather permitting and put the swarm i collected into a hive.

 

[Salamagundy]

Our very first guest in the holiday cottage asked if she could come along when I next looked at the bees. I didn't feel I could say no, but I did try to make it clear I'm a beginner, said I often got stung through the gloves/suit and mentioned anaphylaxis, public liability and the blind leading the blind a number of times, though falling short of asking her to sign a disclaimer.

She wasn't to be put off, however, telling me not to worry as she was 'trained in first aid', so trying to hide a strong sense of foreboding I strode off manfully towards the hives with her in tow and her husband following behind with the camera (both in suits with gloves, I should add.) No pressure then.

(At the previous inspection, on my own, things went badly wrong - the bees were as angry as I had ever seen them, I counted over twenty barbs in my gloves and seven got through to the skin, I destroyed a charged queen cell without thinking, because I was getting rattled, then closed up in a panic, not getting as far as checking one of the brood boxes and wondering if beekeeping was for me after all - the nucs had all been so nice last year.)

Things started well - the smoker stayed lit for once and I didn't have to go back for the hive tool. We found the new queen in the first hive now laying well. The second hive was well ahead of the others with two impressively heavy supers. Still no stings or profanities after the third hive, where there was BIAS. The old queen in the fourth hive was still there - warming to my task I spoke knowledgeably of supersedure, swarming, varroa, nosema and a number of other bee-related topics I didn't know I knew anything about.... There were smiles all round as we left for a cup of tea.

I know hubris brings its own reward and I understand there will be retribution but for today at least I'm a newbee out and proud! (Great post Dusty.)

 

[VEG]

well done

 

[Tom Bick]

Yes well done Salamagundy perhaps now a regular event at your holiday cottage.

 

[Greatbigchicken]

Took a full super off my garden hive today, then my sister (non beek) came round and helped me to extract it. She really enjoyed herself and discovered she's much better than me at uncapping. I think she's got the bug, she went off planning making mead, hand cream and lipbalms.

 

[Tom Bick]

Inspected 3 hives all doing well fitted a 3rd super on one and if the blackberry and lime perform this year hope to get 100lbs of this hive, not bad for a single national in starving Greater London