What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Tom Bick]

Moved one of my hives onto double brood and then visited my association inspected a friends hive that is doing well, and for the first time looked at a hive that was given to me back in February and although it had a laying queen with a few eggs and a bit of sealed brood nothing else and would struggle to fill an apidea right now. So back today with an insulated nuc and a plan and a challenge to turn this colony round.

 

[adamant]

isolated the old queen in 8 of the 15 hives yesterday to make wednesdays re queening easier.

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[dpearce4]

Checked on the 2 nucs I started last week with Buckfast queens from Bee crazy, both queens there and laying. yippee.

Split a hive that was 9frames of brood on commercial, found out that my new site has OSR round it, was surprised when I arrived and saw 4 fields of yellow flowers, supered 3 hives.

Old site, 5 hives now have supers, 2 have 1 full to the brim and 2 added today, all strong with brood over at least 7frames.

 

[scuttlefish]

First proper inspection of the year - all three surviving hives with BIAS on four frames and plenty of stores. Looks like it's safe enough to go shopping for more boxes now...

Cut the grass and tidied up around the hives.

 

[user 6228]

Close call with one hive... we placed a super on a colony last week that was too fiesty and we were running out of time to fully inspect but guessed they could use the room. This week we donned gloves(rare event for us) and went in regardless... 11 frames of BIAS and now brood in the super.. They had built a queen cell but its not charged. They were considerably less aggressive this week... Stress of overcrowding perhaps?

 

[TOBY-3652]

put supers on 3 hives and looked at a nuc with a new queen in... suprise i will have to put in a hive this week.. 3 frames of capped brood and lots of bees

 

[domino]

Checked my hives doing very well, my Miller feeder seems to have go fermented feed in it, what do you lot clean that with?

 

[scuttlefish]

Checked my hives doing very well, my Miller feeder seems to have go fermented feed in it, what do you lot clean that with?

Boiling water.

 

[enrico]

Checked my hives doing very well, my Miller feeder seems to have go fermented feed in it, what do you lot clean that with?

High pressure water hose?

 

[Legs]

Checked on the girls. Saw queen, BIAS on seven frames, loads of pollen coming in and plenty of waggle-dancing. We consolidated into one hive over winter, so I'll spend a bit of time tomorrow prepping all the kit to do an AS in the coming weeks.

 

[TBRNoTB]

Soon some "extraction", finally something to take this year. Till now only to give, to give.. Also doing final preparations for acacia-black locust. Next week it will start flowering hard ( hopefully)..
One colony where queen lay eggs in queen cells change it's mind and gave up from swarming, seems they smelled the acacia flower
Till now only one colony showed true desire for swarming and I made a split..

This will be so aromatic and great flavour honey ( forest fruits and trees) with high % of wild cherry.

Looks like the original 'black bees' can I have some please!

 

[Goran]

Look may trick You they are carnies.. We don't have black bees here, only carnies. Even our carnies look alike your black bees. This picture is from last year in autumn..
Well for honey, lately maybe I am doing too much of inspections ( perhaps got addicted to a smell of w.cherry).

 

[ultreen1]

Moved one hive to the Abby out apiary

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Stress of overcrowding perhaps?

Maybe too warm for them? should think of a way of cooling the hive down a bit?

 

[WelshPaul]

Watched the girls coming and going like mad today. View attachment 8387

 

[Shabro]

Quickly checked on two new queens. Both released and walking round.

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[Mike a]

Bait hives in the back garden starting to attract some attention. They've been out for the last couple of weeks and only managed to attract the old passing bee at most. This morning even though the hives are in the shade there is on average 8-10 bees flying around them and going inside. Twice so far I've seen two bees were fighting so I suspect they are from different colonies nearby.

Just seems a little strange that suddenly they start showing interest when nothing has changed as far as I can tell. Fingers crossed I might get to film a swarm arriving this year. Camcorder and tripod on standby.

 

[Cazza]

Moved a hive today to my brother's small farm. He laid arable to pasture last year with a grass and wildflower mix on around 60 acres. The bees are in the middle of it. No OSR near this year so it will be interesting to see what they harvest. I think there is Balsam on the nearby river bank which I have never had before either.
Happy days.
Cazza

 

[madasafish]

Moved one TBH nuc to a larger one - by swopping positions and moving frames three at a time. Four frames in the original nuc were cross framed. manged to rescue two which held some brood.. the rest disintegrated and went to my honey/wax recovery store.

Combined one TBH nuc Q+ with one TBH hive Q- and drone laying having shaken out all the bees onto the ground.. well - you cannot shake TBH combs as they just break when warm - so I brushed all the bees off with a turkey feather.. Homemade cardboard follower board with center of newspaper to separate colonies for a short period.
(See below).

For once I wore gloves - marigolds . Bees not too bad despite the mess I made moving them around. No stings penetrated marigolds

After 45 mins seems to have gone well. 16C, sunny, no wind. Ideal conditions..
Picture of follower board:

 

[VEG]

Going to try and make some soft set honey later on