What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Headnavigator]

All set up and raring to go

Two cedar Nationals from Hivemaker and a Paynes poly nuc.

 

[oliver90owner]

simonf,

I do and I don't but I am on 14 x 12, so the brood frames are that much deeper.

I have an under-board I can slide in for the Dartingtons to reduce draughts, but most of the rest are open. If only on an 8 1/2 inch deep brood frame, the effect of a solid floor would be more obvious, I would think.

Regards, RAB

 

[Headnavigator]

What happened to 'Edit'?

 

[grizzly]

Are you using Dadant supers on Langstroth broods? Langstroth and Dadant supers are different depths.

Yes i have supers above my Langstroth brood that take Dadant shallow frames, they are a good size super frame, it was the type that came with the poly hive.

Not sure how my back will cope come harvest time.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Didnt think quite warm enough for full inspection but cleared away contact feeders that had had 1:1 in, put on a bit of Neopoll as they continue to chomp through it and fondant, and made a safe landing space for them in my water but.

 

[itchyhives]

They are some fancy looking hives HN feel a bit jealous, very skint at the minute so have knocked up spare hives out of any and all old timber and ply I had. Now got 3 spare hives so might get a bait box put up in a mates wood.

What are bait sausages and are they any good, just read a post where it mentioned them but never heard of them before!?

 

[mannky]

Bailey Comb Change

I tried to find the queen to move her up as I am in the middle of a bailey comb change. Got stung and gave up. Every thing is going like train.

 

[rae]

18C here, so we quickly inspected all 6, and got the queen excluders on.

All 4 of the "new" colonies are rammed with brood, the supers they overwintered with are full of it. Several had complete drone frames. We didn't bother going through the brood boxes, no point at this state. All had brood nests with about 6 frames of brood.

Both of the "original" colonies are in trouble - looking queenless. The queen in both would be on her third season (hatched in May 2009). No brood at all in one, some drone brood in the other. Both have been given a frame of eggs from one of the thriving colonies. Given the time taken to raise and mate a queen, they may not make it. I assume no one has even imported queens available at this stage?

Stores and pollen situation in Berkshire looks good - plenty of uncapped stores.

 

[TOBY-3652]

Bait sausages mmmm all i ever caught with them was foxes never any bees

 

[Headnavigator]

They are some fancy looking hives HN feel a bit jealous, very skint at the minute so have knocked up spare hives out of any and all old timber and ply I had. Now got 3 spare hives so might get a bait box put up in a mates wood.

What are bait sausages and are they any good, just read a post where it mentioned them but never heard of them before!?

The hives are a once-in-a-lifetime investment - I won't tell you how long I've been saving for a bee-keeping retirement! But it's the bees that count in the end, not the hardware, surely?
Think the bait sausages grow on trees closely related to spaghetti trees, eh?

 

[TOBY-3652]

That must be the same as money trees maybe

 

[Ade'sBee's]

Had to move bees as fruit farm where they were was bought by the co.op and didnt want us or our bees on there ....Heres hoping their fruit trees rot or something....short minded money grabbing blah blah blah

 

[grizzly]

Had to move bees as fruit farm where they were was bought by the co.op and didnt want us or our bees on there ..

Rotten Sods - Im going right off the co-op.

 

[Ade'sBee's]

Me too

 

[Haughton Honey]

I managed to take one under my right eye and one in the throat today....both at the same time.

Stings that is.

Tomorrow I will mainly be doing an impression of John Merrick.

 

[crazy_bull]

I managed to take one under my right eye and one in the throat today....both at the same time.

Stings that is.

Tomorrow I will mainly be doing an impression of John Merrick.

I too got one on the neck today, however it was through my own stupidity, at one of the out apiaries, 10 hives to quickly go through, (no frame manipulations) just lift off floors and clean out, got to 10th hive and got stung on my neck, thought bugger how'd that happen, thats when i'd realised i had not done my veil up at all!! the zips were still round the back!!


Other than that i spent the entire weekend melting down crystalized frames and scorching brood boxes.

C B

 

[drstitson]

yesterday finished putting up 2.5m fence posts around our 50mx50m orchard.

watched bees laden with pollen

despatched numerous paper wasps sniffing around hives

and..

got my first wasp sting of 2011!!!!

 

[psafloyd]

Had to move bees as fruit farm where they were was bought by the co.op and didnt want us or our bees on there ....Heres hoping their fruit trees rot or something....short minded money grabbing blah blah blah

THis is the Co-op that has spent a lot of time bigging up bees in the past two years, yet seems to have done little (in the south) to back up its promises?

I'd get on to the local paper if I were you. It's the kind of story they might be able to syndicate.

 

[margob99]

I can't believe how much my bees have done in the past 7 days! Sucked all their feed down, Queen has expanded from 3 frames full of brood to 7 (including lots of drone cells); pollen coming in by the bucket-load.

I finally dredged up the courage to do what I've been planning for ... moved the colony from the BS national to a 14x12. It always feel tough doing such a traumatic thing, essentially "putting them back" as a control measure, but such is the life of an urban beek. Also I'm still such a novice, I'm sure I did a lot of it wrong ... and was made all the more nervous because I couldn't find the Q, so had to hope She went in there with all the others.

Also, let my heart rule my head by transferring all 7 frames full of brood (didn't want to kill any brood), so there are 7 frames too short for the deep box and I'm sure I'll end up with wild comb glued to the floor ... no doubt trouble will come of it, will just have to be on top of it by scrupulously changing frames in due course ...

BUT. I'm so glad I've finally done it, and all the way through the bees weren't stingy at all. Not one sting, I'm proud to say; and very few bees sacrificed. Just have to keep feeding 'em for now.

I hope they make it (well, they've been astounding resilient up to now).

 

[Otleybee]

Went through both colonies for the first time this year yesterday as it was a very warm afternoon. I was concerned as one colony did not seem to be doing so well.

The poorer colony had made a pathetic attempt at a queen cell which I destroyed. There was no brood and I could not see a queen although there must be one laying for them to make a queen cell. I therefore took a frame of brood, eggs and larvae from my good hive and put this into the failing queen colony. I will have a look in weeks time to see if they are making queen cells. The good colony has capped drone brood so hopefully they will be out and flying by the time the new queen emerges in 16 days and she can then get mated.

Fingers crossed.