What did you do in the Apiary today?

[madasafish]

Late entry:
rain stopped. Phone call about small swarm Collected and housed before tea time.

She Who Must Be Obeyed has threatened legal proceedings if hive numbers increase further..

Well that's OK as I have run out of hives...

 

[richardbees]

Saw my first worker wasp of this year.....sniffing around the join between super and bb

 

[nosmoking]

You mean what am i going to do in my Apiary today, well I'm going to put my very first super on ever. Yay

Can you tell me what a 'super' is please. :tongue in cheek:

 

[Queens59]

Watched the bees - wanted to inspect. One of those days though where everything else takes precedence...Boo-hiss!

 

[Chris Luck]

The Maize is humming this morning, incredible sound, hectares and hectares of it and the pollen is piling in.

Chris

(I hope not too much is GM)

 

[meidel]

admired the industrious bees

 

[Luminos]

The Maize is humming this morning, incredible sound, hectares and hectares of it and the pollen is piling in.

Chris

(I hope not too much is GM)

Wow, you're way ahead. Maize here is about 30cm tall and still at the annoying bird-scarer stage

 

[meidel]

inspected the carnie queen colonies on behalf of the beek on holiday and spotted the tiny queen from his prime swarm - so she's the original prolific layer. She's so small that some of the worker bees are larger than her and the cast swarm queen who is her daughter is easily twice her size!

clearly size matters not!

 

[pigletwillie]

Today we collected two nucs from a friend and fellow beek. Once let loose the went on orientation flights and within a couple of hours there were lots of foragers coming back with pollen.

Tomorrow we will rehive into nationals provided the weather is as good as forcast.

 

[tonybloke]

found and marked two 2012 queens! both laying well with good brood patterns. 2 hives have a supers of capped honey on, and the bees are working more supers!

 

[Sadders]

Weekly inspection.

New queen after losing swarm 6ish weeks ago has. Ow laid over 9 14x12 frames. Few patches of drone brood and a few play cups. Numbers increasing nicely. Hope they are not planning a 2nd swarm.

Super largely ignored. 2 frames pulled out and partially filled. Added a 2nd super with 12 frames in optimistic hope given the forecast and moved partially filled super above this.

Put in entrance blocks in preparation of the advent of the wasp.

Bait hive which I put in last week is empty but any remaining stores in an old frame I put in there have been robbed.

Sat on grass in front of hive for about an hour watching the coming and going and forgetting the stress of life. Enjoyed it.

 

[Queens59]

Managed to inspect!!

Only inspected 6 out of 8 and left teh 2 swarms - although we popped a little food on.

Other 6 all now have BIAS - including teh bought in queen...whoop. Also spotted and marked one of the queens...

 

[jackbee]

just sat and enjoyed the sight and the sound , oh and the heavenly aroma

 

[Shabro]

Inspected all hives happy with all but one with emergency cells

 

[fatshark]

Dropped a mini-nuc frame with a mated and laying Q in long grass
Spent 20 minutes but was unable to find her. I will be carpeting the apiary tomorrow.

 

[Alphakillpestie]

Well I combined two hive into one, one was definately not queen right and was only drawing comb on 3 frames, and one which was very healthy and had brood and stores on 9 frames.

To cut a long story short I consulted with my gaffer John Hamer, and he went through the procedure using a tin of lavender air freshener, job done but they were not aggressive but flighty. One last thing to do tomorrow is to take the girls to the out apiary and put another brood box on and feed heavily to make sure they see the winter out.

I`ll get the hang of this one day!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Hedgehog]

Said farewell to Hive 2. Struck down with nosema thanks to our wonderful weather of late, and despite my best efforts, an inspection today revealed that they didn't make it. They'd never been particularly good 'doers' since I picked them up as a swarm a couple of years ago, but were lovely to work with. Always hate to lose a colony.

Hey ho: gird loins, deep breath, spend tomorrow cleaning up the hive parts and waving a gas torch around. Move on.

 

[Walrus]

Inspected 3 hives plus a nuc. One hive is in mid Demaree and the top box (Q-) had made sealed QCs, which I destroyed as I'm going to recombine with HRH in the bottom box. This hive is my one chance of honey this year....there are two supers between the brood boxes and one is at least half sealed honey.

I also blocked up the holes in my crown/clearer boards and placed chip foam quilts on top.

Discussed next years crops with the farmer who owns the land where my bees are. He is growing field beans again next year (no June gap!) so that's good. Mostly he grows barley/wheat which doesn't help me. There is OSR in the area, so I'm feeling positive about 2013.

In fact, there was some OSR pollen coming in today.

 

[cabrerayoung]

New Queen

Added new queen in her cage yesterday. Hope to release her later today and with a bit of luck she will be accepted.

 

[meidel]

lovely weather - lots to do!

this morning saw the bees in our own apiary up with the lark, soaring over the netting surrounding them and returning, some laden with a mix of grey, cream and bright orange pollen. Hoping to see ghost bees later if they find the HB along the brook behind the allotment.

aah it feels like a summer idyll with the hum of bees and gentle sunshine on the shoulders

going down to the assoc apiary later - our group is looking after a colony which was split into 4 parts several weeks back and 2 weeks ago we spotted 2 queens, one of whom was already laying. Today we'll probably make a decision about what to do with them all.

later this afternoon I'd like to inspect my nuc of bees with the queen who had started laying as soon as I took her and 2 frames of bees out of the colony about 10 days ago and perhaps later in the week take a look at how the apidea queen is doing - she'd been slow to unite with the colony as the bees took their time to chew threw the newspaper separating the apidea and brood box.

here's wishing all a happy beekeeping sunday