What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Erichalfbee]

Managed a look through the hives today.
Am away for four days and needed to look in.
Went armed with golfing brolly and lots of smoker material.
All OK.
Blowing a gale now.....where's summer gone?

 

[herefordshirehoney]

Checked all three hives two have had queen cells due to hatch sat/sun. First hive q+ doing really well loads of osr supers to takeoff all capping.

Second hive seemed to be missing its roof and no we're to be found but they glued the plastic crown board to top. Had spare wooden crown board with me so made makeshift roof until I can get new one painted. Again full supers nearly ready to takeoff. Had no queen but queen cell marked frame had hatched. Was quite lovely and sure I could hear chirping so might not be mated yet didn't examine all frames as very lively hive.

Last hive wasn't expecting much as was a three frame nuc I made up as backup plan for hive above. Found eggs and larva and fresh capped brood. Found new queen too small but laying well and bees drawing out fresh frames. Overall impressed with there survival skills.

All hives didn't want me there as wind was picking up and black clouds but avoided a sting.

 

[einsteinagogo]

no inspection today, just cut some Celotex Insulation to fit my roofs, as it's gone very cold and wet here on the Yorkshire Wolds, but olddly, thunder and lighting, heavy rain, and the bees were foraging.....hitting the OSR.

 

[clv101]

no inspection today, just cut some Celotex Insulation to fit my roofs...

Is it better to fit insulation immediately above the crown board, on in the top of the roof?

 

[einsteinagogo]

@clv101 yes, that's what I did! my wording is c**p! it's fitted into the recess in the roof.

 

[Chris Luck]

Cut out a very large colony from a roof.

Chris

 

[Goodwood]

The squalls piling in off the Irish sea this evening along with the short term forecast prompted me to put the entrance reducers back on.
Am i doing the wrong thing?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Am i doing the wrong thing?

I think we all are - it's called trying to keep bees

 

[REDWOOD]

Picked up a swarm on monday, not a bad one on 5 14x12 frames checked varroa drop..... none !!! fed and leave them to it,

 

[Chris Luck]

Picked up a swarm on monday, not a bad one on 5 14x12 frames checked varroa drop..... none !!! fed and leave them to it,

Swarms very rarely will have any noticeable varroa, it''s one of the reasons that natural swarming is a good varroa break.

Chris

 

[garlicpickle]

Discovered I'd been mistaken when I thought my bees had swarmed last week - my mentor and I found the queen today along with about 8 sealed QC, so looks like the last 2 days being wet and cold have saved me from losing the swarm.

Did a split using the snelgrove board hubby made for me, so nothing more to do for a couple of weeks other than opening and closing little doors

 

[MJBee]

Snelgrove describes 2 scenarios a. no queen cells present and b. queen cells present.

The manipulation and positioning of brood/queen cells and queen is very different.

How did you configure your hive Lisa? PM me if you wish.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Not been doing as much inspecting as I should have done, can only partially blame the weather. Anyway my two remaining hives appear to have had multiple swarms and are very much depleted. I've picked up two of the swarms, but one is barely worthy of the name.

Also one of the hive had a lot of bees crawling around, apparently on their last legs - unsure if this is a result of nosema or pesticides.

Not a good day really, will ponder of the next few days but I'm thinking of letting them be for a couple of weeks and if no apparent egg laying then going for two replacement queens.

 

[cjhart2]

Shock time , went to have a look at all the hives , where there were stores there last week all gone this week . Going to have to feed them . The weather has been bad but i was not expecting that , looks like it is going to be a tough year just keeping them going .

 

[Swarm]

That sounds terrible, cjhart2.

Found the dummy board on poly hive braced solid to the next frame and had to lift out both together. Tried every way to part them carefully but no good, the brood patch tore away from the comb, leaving a five inch hole in it. So much for bee gap.

The bees then informed us that the torrential rain was starting again. To be fair, they were really well behaved, just a change in tone to let us know they'd like the roof back on.

 

[Glenviewbee]

First sting of the year...

I've given myself strict instructions not to interfere with the bees in either colony until 25th (sealed QC's in BOTH sections of AS seen on 6th June) to allow for emergence, mating and initial laying to start from both queens (fingers crossed)

So - decided to go and watch the hives for a bit this afternoon. No problem from 1st colony, was just sitting quietly about 3ft away and watching them bring in pollen and nectar, also watching (and hearing!) some drones buzzing around. Then I moved to the 2nd hive, again just watching from about 3 ft away - after about 5 mins (again pollen and nectar going in) one of the guard bees came wazzing out, straight for my wrist and gave me a sting I retreated in haste.

Weather is due to be a tad sh1te tomorrow (is pretty blustery today and 15 degrees) but hopefully early next week we should get some good weather for the VQ mating flights (if I am calculating the timings correctly)

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Helped out in the bee tent all morning at the Welsh game fair - Hard work being nice to people for a whole five hours you know! (luckily I'd popped an extra painkiller) then tottered wearily home and on the way I found some square galvanised steel pans propped up in the hedge 'I'm sure they'll suffice for hive roofs' I though so I took them home and pottered around the shed for a while.

 

[einsteinagogo]

First sting of the year...

I've given myself strict instructions not to interfere with the bees in either colony until 25th (sealed QC's in BOTH sections of AS seen on 6th June) to allow for emergence, mating and initial laying to start from both queens (fingers crossed)

So - decided to go and watch the hives for a bit this afternoon. No problem from 1st colony, was just sitting quietly about 3ft away and watching them bring in pollen and nectar, also watching (and hearing!) some drones buzzing around. Then I moved to the 2nd hive, again just watching from about 3 ft away - after about 5 mins (again pollen and nectar going in) one of the guard bees came wazzing out, straight for my wrist and gave me a sting I retreated in haste.

Weather is due to be a tad sh1te tomorrow (is pretty blustery today and 15 degrees) but hopefully early next week we should get some good weather for the VQ mating flights (if I am calculating the timings correctly)

and I though it was just me that watched that close without a bee suite, same happened to me last Sunday, got stung on the temple! ouch!

certainly hurt when it happened, but pain soon went away, I've had worse nettle stings on my hands, I'm a little more cautious now!

 

[Mellifera397]

Discovered I'd been mistaken when I thought my bees had swarmed last week - my mentor and I found the queen today along with about 8 sealed QC, so looks like the last 2 days being wet and cold have saved me from losing the swarm.

Did a split using the snelgrove board hubby made for me, so nothing more to do for a couple of weeks other than opening and closing little doors

I'm going to start Method II tomorrow so fingers crossed it'll go smoothly.

M

 

[yeogi75]

me and gyp sorted out his neglected hive out five stings apiece on hands ouch, gyp will post some pics later