What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Shabro]

Collected what I think was a cast this evening, the thanks we got was more than payment enough.

 

[wmfd]

Went out with the bee inspector last night to look at my two hives, both got a clean bill of health but:

Home hive had swarmed, sealed queen cells, damn! So shutting up for three weeks other than hefting for stores. Just keeping a hopeful eye on the weather now for mating flights.

Swarm I hived last week had eggs, and looking good. They'd taken down all the syrup though, so returned later with a feeder full.

 

[thundercat]

Two to Four Colonies?

One colony had swarmed, but I got them back. That Q was very prolific and she has very quickly filled a brood and a half [with eggs] in just a few weeks. Hoping her former colony has a new mated Q. Weather has been awful, so worried about drone Q.

Other colony had a picky Q and lazy colony. Even though there was plenty of room in the supers, the colony preferred to fill up the brood box with stores, and the Q would primarily lay in the top box of two. Thankfully, that Q was overthrown and killed by the new Q [weather was too awful for them to swarm]... I opened up the colony to hear her piping. She was quite happy for us to inspect the colony while she piped. Hoping she mates and lays well, but not too bothered as I'll probably replace her with the older swarm Q.

 

[Teemore]

Helped a friend with a 'difficult' colony last night. All season it has been a real chore to go anywhere near that hive but they are drawing out their third super. To say they are bad tempered is an understatement but a change is afoot! Went to the hive last night to find and remove the queen and managed to spot and remove her in short order. (Two other beeks failed to find her a couple of weeks ago). For the first time in a long while I wore thick gloves when working a hive and was glad of the extra thickness between my hands and those bees!! A newly mated queen will be installed tonight or tomorrow, weather permitting.
Also ran a virgin in the front of a Q- nuc that has been resisting attempts to requeen it (really an experiment). There were laying workers present a few weeks ago but we seem to have eliminated them by adding a few frames of emerging brood. The guard bees didn't react when i ran the VQ in so it will be interesting to see if she gets mated successfully... Incidentally, the aforementioned VQ had been running about in a full hive with another VQ two frames away! The bees were keeping them separate. When I got home I introduced another VQ into a Kieler.
I really need to get around my own bees tonight as the weather has kept me out of the hives in two of my out apiaries for a couple of weeks...

 

[oliver90owner]

Teemoore,

Incidentally, the aforementioned VQ had been running about in a full hive with another VQ two frames away!

Another instance of this was observed on another thread (All the Gear No Idea - A Beginners Journey).

Was your instance a case where the first virgin to emerge was about to leave (as a cast) before you disturbed the hive?

RAB

 

[Teemore]

G'day RAB,
The inspection was a little tardy.

This was a queen-right colony (2010 Queen) that had been used to raise queen cells by the Hopkins method. When we checked through the hive whilst moving capped cells into an incubator, we discovered that the colony had produced swarm cells in the brood box. The original queen was promptly relocated into a 5 frame nuc and moved to another apiary and the capped swarm cells in the hive were variously moved into the incubator and into mating nucs. Four uncapped and charged QCs were left and marked in the hive with the intention that the hive be revisited five days later and a single viable QC left in situ. The weather dictated otherwise...

The weather was not ideal last night but we knew it was getting 'very' close to the date of emergence for the QCs. We didn't want to lose a cast from this hive as it has been a well tempered, productive and steady colony throughout 2011 and to date as have colonies headed by her 2011 daughters - hence the inspection in inclement weather.

I think it likely that the first emerged virgin queen would have left in a cast (technically a prime swarm as there had been no previous swarm out of this hive). I also think it likely that the second virgin was given the opportunity to emerge due to the disturbance of the inspection. This is something i witnessed last year as well when called to do an artificial swarm/split on another friend's hive after a prime swarm had issued. On that occasion I had the opportunity to see several VQs disappear into the middle of the hive.

Last night it was interesting to watch workers headbutt the virgin queen to keep her confined to a small area of the comb. I spotted her when I went back through the frames to 'harvest' the uncapped QCs having earlier noted that the bees had pared back the wax around the tip of the QC from which she subsequently emerged. A count of opened queen cells suggests that only the two VQs had emerged but one of the capped cells could always have been resealed!

 

[Polyanwood]

Today I picked up a swarm, I fed some bees and I sorted out a hive that had a drone laying queen.

 

[Poly Hive]

Going on holiday tomorrow for a few days.

Caged the remaining two cells, wanted desperately to put them into a Lyson dual mating hive but time is against me, so I may have two desperate to mate virgins on my return.

Supered lavishly, and have my fingers crossed as never ever gone away in prime season before.... A new learning curve

Bucket and spade time, Mull of Galloway here we come.. and aye I bet it's a new one to most of you...LOL

PH

 

[earthsoul]

rechecked the hives after yesterdays debacle, one hive is fine, the other is queenless, as I have capped queen cells, I have left alone as it looks like they are superseding as the queen appears to have gone, but so many bees on the frames it is difficult to scan the frames, no eggs, or larvae so she has gone, if she did swarm she didn't take many with her, or any honey!!!!

My nucleus flooded over the weekend, due to poor manufacture, there was n lip to prevent water going into the entrance hole and no drainage for water that did go in - I will be contacting a certain auction site about that as the nucleus box was not fit for purpose, very upset about that! The bees fell onto the pooled water including my queen and it was a bee titanic.

 

[REDWOOD]

Going on holiday tomorrow for a few days.

Caged the remaining two cells, wanted desperately to put them into a Lyson dual mating hive but time is against me, so I may have two desperate to mate virgins on my return.

Supered lavishly, and have my fingers crossed as never ever gone away in prime season before.... A new learning curve

Bucket and spade time, Mull of Galloway here we come.. and aye I bet it's a new one to most of you...LOL

PH

have a good one, just think of us sweating in our suits when you'r in your trunks building sand hives on the beach lol

 

[justme]

rechecked the hives after yesterdays debacle, one hive is fine, the other is queenless, as I have capped queen cells, I have left alone as it looks like they are superseding as the queen appears to have gone, but so many bees on the frames it is difficult to scan the frames, no eggs, or larvae so she has gone, if she did swarm she didn't take many with her, or any honey!!!!

My nucleus flooded over the weekend, due to poor manufacture, there was n lip to prevent water going into the entrance hole and no drainage for water that did go in - I will be contacting a certain auction site about that as the nucleus box was not fit for purpose, very upset about that! The bees fell onto the pooled water including my queen and it was a bee titanic.

Solid floor hives should always tilt down slightly at the front, so that the water can run out if it does get to go in. If you had a lip on the front and it was placed properly, water would not be able to run out.
Hope that helps:.)

 

[earthsoul]

the lip on the front was flat, the hole is lower than the landing area, so water had full access in, even titled (as it was) it would have filled with water as it had an inch depth to fill that could not run out freely.
With hindsight I will never buy a solid based nucleus again, but hindsight is a wonderful thing after you have lost a colony, we will know what to do next time, and that will be drill in a drainage hole.

 

[Chris58]

So last night I get a call from a friend, she has a swarm on her fence post. So me and wife phone MJBee and we three get said swarm off post (oh if they were all that easy), and install into a hive next to the feisty mob, by around 9.30pm.
This morning check bees, swarm behaving like they'd always lived there, and then, on our bees, had noticed a few play cups before, but this time loads of queen cells, several capped! Rush home, make up another brood hive (thank god we'd had a delivery a while ago of parts from Th****s). Managed to install our old queen with artificial swarm just before it started raining. Tonight we have 3, last night we only had one!
Thank you MJBee.
.

 

[Martin G]

Swarms strike twice

Collected a swarm from the same tree I collected one in last week, luckily I’d put a bait hive there so it was an easier job as they’d moved in (mostly). Spent the rest of the day making a base and roof .

Martin

 

[YorkshireBees]

Added a 2nd BB to the Poly hive that is expanding very fast and swapped a super of foundation for a super of half / half foundation and extracted drawn comb!

Went to demaree a large hive and couldn't find the Queen, may have swarmed today as there was still about 2 frames of fresh eggs!
Will know when I check on it at the weekend.

 

[psafloyd]

Discovered I'm probably going to have to combine one that did have a queen with another colony as she has disappeared.

However, discovered another has mated and looks like she's just starting to lay. Marked her.

Saw another is laying great guns (marked her, too) and they are drawing out the Manleys in the super nicely.

Realised the plunger queen marker tool is a clumsy thing which bees do not wish to enter and could lead to damaging the queen. This second one was put down on the frame she came from, but jumped out after I marked her and did a runner. Hoping she only ran into the box where it was dark. Will check at the weekend as I am going away at the end of next week.

Put clearer board on main colony as there is one full super and one that is more than half full and I am down to my last four pounds of jarred honey.

 

[MuswellMetro]

started at crack of dawn - due to beeb forecasting rain all day, made up syrup and trudged down to OH's small nuc to feed with 500 mls

later in the afternoon as forecasted rain hadn't arrived went down and looked through some of my colonies - the one which had started to lay seems to have stopped completely and one supersedure cell can be seen hanging down the middle of a frame. Bees here were calm. enough stores so closed up with mixed feelings.

2nd colony with possible drone laying queen, eggs are now singly at bottom of cell and a few capped worker cells. The rest of the frame seem bumpy, not distinctly domed caps but not exactly flat either. darned bees, why don't they produce anything that look like the pictures in the books??? bees calm despite my efforts to locate their queen, in vain.

Now my main colony, the one which I thought was settling down, (after swarming twice previously) raising own virgin which had laid up 5 frames of brood and filled a super and a half. When I last looked on 9th June they'd torn down the 4 QCs and I saw the queen and eggs in the frame she was on. I even marked her! When I looked today, the bees were a tad tetchy and I saw neither eggs nor queen. I have a feeling they swarmed earlier when I wasn't looking as there was a swarm cell at the bottom of one of the frames.

you should not accept bees from a man who likes a number 34 Bus

WE need to get a local queen rearing group going to provide a less smarmy bee than the area now seems to have. what's happpneg is that the more swarmy bees are increasing as the swarms and castes are being rehoused and the % of swarmy hives are increasing and so are swarmy drones

 

[meidel]

you should not accept bees from a man who likes a number 34 Bus

ah I must've missed that lesson!

WE need to get a local queen rearing group going to provide a less smarmy bee than the area now seems to have.

Is that why some of them have been following me home

what's happpneg is that the more swarmy bees are increasing as the swarms and castes are being rehoused and the % of swarmy hives are increasing and so are swarmy drones

I think I have a solution for the drone layers - with a qex at the bottom of the prime swarm hive containing your original queen, who now has a white frilly edge around her thorax (bees ltried to lick off her mark ), I'll shake the drone laying nuc of bees in front of this hive and hope that the queen pheromones from her will wipe out their laying instincts and if it's a DLQ, she'll perish outside the hive.

as for the other nuc raising a supersedure cell, I think it's from Fred's queen originally, although who the young queen mated with is anybody's guess!

and the main colony, well, I should locate the queen, remove her and replace her with someone less swarmy... possibly the one which is about to emerge from the nuc?

 

[madasafish]

Fed all my weak hives in advance of the poor weather forecast : altho' they have collected a fair bit of nectar in the past good 3 days..

Completed construction of insulated TBH nuc, just in time to see teh swarm I hoped to fill it with - disappear into the distance..

 

[pigletwillie]

I did my hive inspection today. There is lots of pollen stores and lots of sealed brood, brood and eggs but virtually no stores so I set up a feeder and fed them some sugar syrup afterwards.

Her Majesty was also found and marked and looked in fine fettle with another frame drawn out ready for her. There are just 3 frames to be drawn out now in the brood box and considering the weather I think the colony is doing ok.