What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Ely]

removed a super of sealed honey!

Jammy bugger!

 

[tonybloke]

hopefully not the only one this year.

nope, that's 3 supers so far this season, more to come, I hope

 

[Ely]

So unfair. I dunno what I'm blummin doing wrong

 

[Sadders]

Made a new stand. Wasn't happy with it (too flimsy) so will make another next week.

Knocked together 36 frames. Not very happy with the quality. Very knotty. Some bits fell apart including one top bar, another frame wont last long and a few more wont survive spinning.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Yesterday,met PeteD, had a long chat and handed over the kit I'd bought nfor him in the MM sales - now in Gorinchem, Holland enjoying the last of the sun.
Just had an intel report of suspicious activity in Heathrow - two shady looking characters on the perimeter road exchanging cash for bulky packages!!

 

[youngyoungs]

Carnage in the Apiary. Annoyed my bees. Amalgamated hive and nuc, where I have seen the queen. Then checked out the other hive where I had a 2012 new queen, lots of brood, and now have queen cells. It would be so nice to have hives with a 2 marked laying queens, "proper" brood pattern, no queen cells and where I don't need to feed them and the rain holds off for more than 5 minutes. Does that ever happen?

 

[Moggs]

Comprehensive inspection of the Big Apiary. Tidied up some odd frames. New queens laying well (apart from 1 mystery hive, possible late mating). Thankfully not flooded out but hives elevated out of a mini lake. Fed two but all others ok, some even with stores in supers DLQ/ ELW finally come good after a shake and a bit of TLC recently.

Just home with a cuppa when called to a swarm. Nice size at the very tip of a huge conifer. Fortunately beekeeper chum had telescopic sock thingy at home. A few 'don't look down' ladder moments (I don't do heights) and wavy pole manipulations had dropped two good dollops of bees into my poly nuc. I think the queen is in residence.
A good day in bee world.

 

[iand]

and the rain holds off for more than 5 minutes. Does that ever happen?

Spent yesterday afternoon looking through the bees in sunshine, but kept looking over my shoulder, as the sea fret moved in then back out again. A legacy of 44mm rain the day before I guess.

What a difference a few days make! Earlier on making a batch of nucs most got a virgin introduced, but I ran out so so a few got a Qc from the next batch of grafts. The virgins all mated OK but the younger ones from the the Qcs look like being drone layers.
As ever hedge your bets, is the name of the game with our weather.

To-days job grass cutting, getting sites ready. Then feeding some nucs.

 

[REDWOOD]

Too ill to do anything, full of flu, will try and get up to the apiary tomorrow

 

[user 6228]

the 5 way split nicely settled down .... all laying away 5 frames of broad in 4 just one to inspect...
a full frame of honey in the super plus lots of other stores, eggs in the super (no excluder) and 5 frames capped brood in the brood box about 4 frames to draw and ...

3 charged queen cells
Oh no here we go again...

knocked them back, shuffled the undrawn frames into the pack, took the full frame of honey, opened up the entrance( block was in) and plan for an AS next weekend.

 

[meidel]

confirmed that 2 colonies in the apiary were queenless, mine and one of OH's. What a reversal of fortunes - in late Spring I had 2 Q+ colonies which I was pretty sure weren't going to swarm (one was a hived prime swarm and the other had been forced to raise its own queen after having all its swarm cells knocked out bar one) and 2 nucs ticking along, OH had a limping along main colony, which lost their queen, one nuc sized thing raising a young queen and a cast swarm.

Now I've had to combine the 2 colonies when they swarmed and it's queenless, the 2 nucs were found to have drone laying queens and after shaking them out etc, they were combined with a virgin queen run in - she's there but not sure whether she'll lay, will check next week.

OH meanwhile now has 3 Q+ colonies - the first young queen has been laying steadily for a good couple of months now, the virgin run into the limping main colony on 24th June has started to lay (fingers crossed not drones but these are single eggs) and the prime swarm originally my prime swarm is doing what it does best - drawing comb and laying apace despite donating test frames left right and centre (again) and the 4th colony Q- and raising queen cells. He'll probably combine the Q- colony with one of the strong colonies once the eggs have been confirmed as good.

But I'm the one with filling supers

 

[For want of a better word]

Tea chest sized swarm in top of tree right over my garden bees... neighbours getting all stressy
( then they are ignorant townies who even object to the odd cockerel crowing !)

Sounded like a helicopter landing in my back garden..... a huge swarm....

Ladder and rope job to get warm in box..... immediately found queen,,, was marked yellow... definitely NOT one of mine as my nearest this years queen is miles away.
Queen put in queen catcher clip.. put in box.. all flyers in by 8.00. New hive set up, queen released into hive with QE under, rapid feeder filled.. box of bees placed on board in front of hive and they all marched in!

My garden bees are all NewZealanders.. this swarm looked distinctly larger and more olive.... someone has lost a huge colony!

Couple of hours sleep would be nice..........

 

[Shabro]

knocked together some frames I got from York***re Bee****s , wont bother getting any more from there, quality is very poor.

 

[greengumbo]

Did some last minute lopping of bushes and clearing, leveling the ground then went to get my nuc at dusk.

No sign of foraging bees returning so me and a mate covered up the entrance wrapped it up and drove the 6 miles to my cottage. Placed the nuc in position and opened up the entrance. Bees started to come out had a wee scurry over the surface then retreated back in.

Had a quick look at the entrance this morning and just a single bee sitting about - not surprising given the cold and mist this morning.

Going to finish painting the poly hive over the next few days then do the transfer if the weather improves.

I have bees !

 

[Pete D]

Busy weekend, sold 4 nuc's, delivered 2 on route to see my dad, met up with Jenkinsbrynmair at Heathrow and done dodgy deal in car park which involved bundles of notes in exchange for Maize more sale goodies......thanks Emyr
Did inspections on 16 colonies when sun came out, all had laying queens....for now, added another super to a couple.......2 of them have drawn and filled my cut comb frames........hoping they might cap it soon.
Updated all my hive records and had a stock take of bees and equipment.
Bottled up 56 lb jars from last 2 buckets of my June harvest. Selected some of these for association honey show later in the month.
Delivered swarm collected last week to bee less lady who now has her 1st bees and seemed very happy.
Did 2 unites for local keeper who is on holiday and didnt have time before he went.
Dished out Ambrosia fondant and syrup to association members from our bulk purchase
Answered 27 phone calls from brother (3 more today) who seems to have got the bug........... and is now planning to build nuc boxes this week and assemble a hive...........in readiness for next spring !
Logged on forum a dozen times.
Laughed out loud at some of the t shirt slogan ideas
oh and a bit of non bee related stuff........ honest
Pete D

 

[FreeFall]

Yesterday, finally the weather was good enough to combine an AS that swarmed anyway (and was caught) back with the parent hive - taking me from 6 hives/nucs back down to 5. I was pleased with this as I'm trying to reduce numbers going into winter.

Checked the prime swarm (not from mine) that I caught end of May - they had produced another batch of queen cells despite my knocking them all down 4 days ago and giving more space - so performed AS on them.

So, back where I started in regard to number of boxes...

 

[Greatbigchicken]

Moved 3 hives to my new apiary. All seemed to go very well and to plan.

 

[BBG]

Watched bees clearing newspaper from within the hive after yesterday's uniting with newspaper.

They appear to take a run up fromthe back of the hive and leap off the front heading skywards with pieces of paper as long as themselves and as wide.

One had a piece almost as big as a postage stamp and flew upwards until she disappeared, a few others did the same with not far off size bits.

Many others had little bits in their mouth as they left the hive in a hurry.

Fantastic to watch as obviously there was a detail in action to sort out the paper from within an they were.

If we get the video uploaded you can see other huge bits under the hive bench that have been chewed off, dragged down and out.

The combine looks successful as there is now a calmness within them - famous last words!

 

[victor meldrew]

Watched bees clearing newspaper from within the hive after yesterday's uniting with newspaper.

They appear to take a run up fromthe back of the hive and leap off the front heading skywards with pieces of paper as long as themselves and as wide.

One had a piece almost as big as a postage stamp and flew upwards until she disappeared, a few others did the same with not far off size bits.

Many others had little bits in their mouth as they left the hive in a hurry.

Fantastic to watch as obviously there was a detail in action to sort out the paper from within an they were.

If we get the video uploaded you can see other huge bits under the hive bench that have been chewed off, dragged down and out.

The combine looks successful as there is now a calmness within them - famous last words!

Another one for ecology 'Save electricity, use the bees as shredders'
VM

 

[meidel]

Watched bees clearing newspaper from within the hive after yesterday's uniting with newspaper.

They appear to take a run up fromthe back of the hive and leap off the front heading skywards with pieces of paper as long as themselves and as wide.

One had a piece almost as big as a postage stamp and flew upwards until she disappeared, a few others did the same with not far off size bits.

Many others had little bits in their mouth as they left the hive in a hurry.

Fantastic to watch as obviously there was a detail in action to sort out the paper from within an they were.

If we get the video uploaded you can see other huge bits under the hive bench that have been chewed off, dragged down and out.

The combine looks successful as there is now a calmness within them - famous last words!

Isn't it?

And did you find they chewed through incredibly rapidly! We were amazed at all the debris under the hive!