What did you do in the Apiary today?

[village girl]

yep no problem would be happy to help

Blimey village girl thats one party you have done there for dusty, can you organise my next one please?

 

[Pete D]

Just finished extracting 8 supers, approx 160lb gone into buckets.
Along with the 220lb in July I am quite happy with 380 lb in my second year.
I was hoping to get 300lb so did that, wonder what I could of had in a good year !
Lots of lessons learnt for next year so bring it on.
Best lesson is that more bees = more honey, not more hives = more honey !

Pete D

 

[Pete D]

Just met 'Little John' off here and passed a 3 week old swarm on 14x12's on to him which he is going to give the 'Ritz' treatment to and get them through the winter.
When I collected them from a local churchyard (4th swarm from there this year) they had been there a day or so and were fairly tetchey. I looked at them after 10 days and they were even more so. Had a look at them on Friday and they were a delight and saw a nice dark queen and eggs and larvae on 2 1/2 frames.
Godd luck with them Colin.
Pete D

Oh said Church has at least 2 colonies living in the roof and they or at least bees have been there over 30 years.

 

[WelshPaul]

Well did a proper inspection today, bees a lot better behaved. Lots of stores in the brood and a half, larvae in many stages but only one frame with eggs in. Should I be worried?

 

[Sadders]

I am public enemy no. One to my bees today.

I took my semi filled solitary super off today and also took a frame of stores from my BB as they have plenty in there and I will be feeding them before too long so they won't go short.

There must be some watery stuff in there and I must have dripped it all over as fights were breaking out all over the place and there were patches of bees all over the place.

Then as if they hadn't been through enough I started the thymol treatment. Que. loads of bees out front and not very happy.

Poor things. Will check briefly next week and re treat.

 

[victor meldrew]

Sultry weather , 12 full supers to lift (Twice) sweating like a pig .
Now I know why I decided to slowly reduce colony numbers !
Maybe I'll knock a TBH together and play with that . I hate wrestling with honey , all the rigmarole
VM

 

[TOBY-3652]

extracted 60 pound of balsom honey mmmmmm tastes good

 

[Martin G]

Cows in with the bees

Checked an out apiary (yesterday afternoon) and found some cows from a neighbouring field had crashed the fence and got amongst the bees. Most ok, a few hives pushed but not toppled over, but a nuc I had been bringing on from a small swarm, was knocked over, roof off, frames scattered and all open to the horrendous rain we’d had the night before. Somehow there were still a good number of bees, not sure about the queen. Re-assembled and put back on stand, I’ll check later in the week, if no good I’ll combine it with some others ready for winter.

Martin

 

[Sadders]

View attachment 7257

Harvested my honey, about 4lb of it. Not a lot to show for a summers work

Also popped to my hive without my suit for the first time. Just to see if things had calmed down after me stealing their stores and putting on thymol. Also took my son for the first time. Things had calmed back to normal and we got quite close to the hive without them caring (usually quite feisty). I could smell the thymol before I got to the hive. I had a quick look at the varroa board. In the early 20's in 24 hours. My usual non thymol count is between 0 and 2 in a week. The thymol seems to be working.

 

[victor meldrew]

What a difference a day makes , weather cold ,wet and windy !
Maybe the bees will concentrate on capping the super frames whilst house bound ?
VM

 

[beehive1234]

Watched the WBC girls dragging out the drones, (kicking and screeming) yesterday. Pood things out in this terrible weather today. Put a dusting of Varoa Gard on the Warre/National/WBC hive floor. Hope it helps to clear up the chalk brood.

 

[Outlander]

Went to bq this morning and bought some wood and made 5 Apigaurd ekes. Have enough wood to make 3 more and paid less than buying 2 from Thor***

 

[Mike a]

Still waiting for most of my colonies to cap the honey in the supers in my local apiaries. Last time I checked it was still very watery so waiting another week. Off to the New Forest towards the end of the week to see how the hives are doing. Should be a good harvest and plenty for them to over winter with as well.

 

[TBRNoTB]

Sultry weather , 12 full supers to lift (Twice) sweating like a pig .
Now I know why I decided to slowly reduce colony numbers !
Maybe I'll knock a TBH together and play with that . I hate wrestling with honey , all the rigmarole
VM

Wish I had that problem John!

 

[thepliedes]

I bought two rhombus clearing boards last month, put one on each hive yesterday and went back today. Supers cleared apart from about 8 bees on each. A really good job - unlike last year with porter bee escapes, perhaps I left those on for too long a time last year. I deliberately only left the clearer boards on for 24 hours. Brilliant result. So got supers off and have stored them outside with mesh floor ready for extracting. From two hives this year I got 4 supers (just) - so about 100lb...same as last year.

 

[Poly Hive]

Very easy to make the clearer boards and yes they work well been saying this for years...

PH

 

[oldsalthouse]

Took the supers of the hives yesterday, most had 3 on each, 2 had 4 supers, better than last year.

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

I finished bottling my first harvest from my first hive!

The large bottle on top is the first I bottled.

It's for my godson and his fiancee, whose marriage I'm taking in November.
Plenty of sermon material there!
("Remember, D - there's only one queen bee!" etc)

Dusty

 

[circe]

put wet supers back on hive to clean up (before the ivy flow....) put bright symbol on hive with VQ due to hatch to (hopefully) direct her back to hive entrance - last one ended up laying under gap in roof and side of box.... checked mite drop - considerably fewer this year
also wasps less evident ... now for some nice dry autumn weather pls

 

[craigavonb]

Please remove this site. It is the most useless piece of old crap. Never once have I read anything constructive