What did you do in the Apiary today?

[KitzTaz]

welcome to the forum KitzTaz

you could try and dribble a tablespoon of feed down the feed hole, so they now the feed is up there

Thanks MM i did try that, will leave them for little while and check it out later this evening.

 

[TOBY-3652]

checked a swarm that i got on the 1/7/12 and it is now laying eggs and saw the queen and also checked a swarm that i was given and saw a small queen but no eggs [yet]

 

[Sadders]

Got home from work. As the sky was blue I decided to cuprinol my spare hive. The second I finished boom, loud clap of thunder and torrential rain. Most of the cuprinol washed off.

 

[Chris Luck]

Messy cut out, another one between window and shutters, unfortunately well established and equally well stuck to the window and the shutters, so lots of plop and dollop getting them open, honey can be disgusting stuff sometimes.

Anyway, hived and moved tonight to a transition field to see what's what for a few weeks.

Chris

 

[scuttlefish]

Re-queened #2 on the second pass after rain stopped play on monday evening, and swapped a couple of frames of manky patchy brood comb for some fresh foundation (and squeezed in a dummy board to bring them up to full 11+1). Have christened the old #2 queen Medb ("Maeve"), 'cos she and her followers were evil...

Checked #1A (as split from #1), stores still v. light (will probably need to feed again) but found a full frame of eggs on fifth frame from back so they're Q+ with a brand new queen - so my timeline was about right for her, she must have emerged a day or so before the one sunny weekend we've had in the past two months - hurrah! Duly re-christened hive #4.

#1 is filling super no. 4 & #3 is filling super no. 1 (so no more feeding needed).

Happy happy happy.

 

[Summerslease]

Well, well, well. On 20th June I released a mated queen from a butler cage to Q- Hive1. She was already marked but I clipped her to prevent swarming into my urban environment. As I was doing the clipping she made off and I couldn't tell if she'd dropped into the hive or onto the ground. I searched round the hive but couldn't find her, so I had to wait to see if she started laying. There were no eggs and the bees raised a very poor QC which was due to hatch yesterday at the latest. The weather was too bad for an inspection yesterday so I dived in this morning during a brief dry spell.

As I removed the one super they had half filled in two months there she was, on top of the QE trying to get down into the brood box. I couldn't believe my luck and helped her down. I'm assuming that she has already been accepted by the colony as they've been feeding her for three weeks above the QE. I'll wait a week now before checking for eggs. (The bees had pulled down the QC since the last inspection and hopefully destroyed whatever was in it).

I will be careful to check the QE on every inspection from now on, just in case the queen is on it.

 

[Chris Luck]

Normally a mated Queen above the excluder will lay anyway, she doesn't know or care that she can't go "downstairs". Problem is when a VQ is trapped above the excluder and can't get out to mate and of course any drone will be stuck up there as well.

Chris

 

[greengumbo]

Having not seen my new bees at all since getting a nuc on sunday, except for a few grumpy ones at the entrance, I was delighted to hear from my wife they are out and about today !

Might move them from nuc to main poly hive tommorrow. I have a few questions but I'll start a new topic.

 

[george]

Bit of an oops moment , driving round at work and saw a good prime swarm hanging from an Oak tree .
Its now in a Commercial on foundation and has a few hundred bees fanning manically above the entrance .
Still b***&y annoying though . First decent day in ages to go through , which was this pm's plan , looks like I was an hour or two too late .

 

[Walrus]

I have made 4 hive stands as per Cushman plan, but with slightly longer legs (5" taller). Will get them weatherproofed soon and then put my hives/nucs on them hopefully at the weekend. My woodworking skills have come on in leaps and bounds....I'm almost "adequate" now

 

[Shabro]

united two small colonies and moved a swarm from a temporary nuc into something a bit better...

 

[TOBY-3652]

marked 2 queens and checked 6 hives 3 very low on stores.. and treated 2 wasp nests

 

[hallshoney]

been to a meeting held by our local branch about brood disease very good got to handle actual infected combs afb efb gloves and aprons provided

 

[VEG]

I did that course was very good

 

[YorkshireBees]

Yesterday I checked hives in 1 apiary. Last inspection between 10days and 2 weeks due to weather / work commitments!

All doing fine apart from one where I found 4 or 5 sealed QC's. I knew that this hive was preparing to swarm as it is one of the few that still has last years queen. I have demareed it several times this season so far and been lucky that they carried on without swarming.
When I found the 1st well developed but not sealed QC I marked the frame and then on subsequent frames I found and removed 4-5 sealed Queen cells.
Even though I saw fresh eggs I was thinking that they probably had left sometime earlier that day as it was the 1st real decent weather!
Imagine my surprise to find the queen still wandering about laying eggs on the next to the last frame of a double national brood!

Anyway decided to err of the safe side and moved her a 2 more frames to a Nuc and leave just the nice open QC for the rest to raise a new queen from.

All the hives had stores and various levels of nectar stored in the supers.

Hopefully will have time to inspect my other out apiary this afternoon.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Sailed back from Holland in very rough weather (when I said I wouldn't mind having that wonderful Dutch soup again what happened was not quite what I had in mind! ) and got to blighty in the early hours of yesterday.
decided to inspect my empire before the rain started today - first thing I noticed that the bait hive had a very strong throng of foragers zipping back and forth! success! haven't looked inside yet - I'll leave them settle and transfer them next week doubt they're mine as inspection 7 days ago showed no QC's.
Checked hive no1 - loads of stores and queen present third super put on
Hive no2 queen present (so swarm is definitely not mine although same kind of Buckfast type bees) but not laying very well (down to 6 frames) so quick chat and the threat of the freezer given - we'll see next week, half a super of stores so OK for a while yet.
Checked the nuc I made up two weeks ago - queen has been accepted by the bees going like a boeing so being transferred to full hive next week
Had a swarming call passed on to me, nice lady who knew she had bumbles didn't want them killed but just checking whether they needed to be moved for their own good or what - nice long chat and bumbles will be left until they go their own merry way in the autumn.
Then it rained so Garn cottage bees will have to fend for themselves for a while longer.
Profile now updated!

 

[cjhart2]

Just planted a 100m of Lime trees ( Tilia Cordata ) . Rain due tomorrow , so hopefully watered in .

 

[MuswellMetro]

i woke up and looked out of my bedroom window....clear blue sky...my spirits lifted , inspection weather, until i realised i had no car today as it was going in for service

i spent the day at home and extracted a few supers.....then washed the kitchen floor floor three times before the other half arrived home from work

rather a darker honey than the usual i get off this apairy, everything is different this year.... yields are down as well

 

[alysonmaria]

saw a virgin queen emerging from a queen cell in my mentors hands-amazing!

 

[Walrus]

finished off my hive stands