What did you do in the Apiary today?

[pargyle]

Spent a time watching the front of the hive with a worker firmly clasping a drone and 'frog' marching him away from the entrance of the hive. He got back to the entrance several times and each time a worker grabbed him firmly around the body and marched him back up the front/up the side of the hive. Hoping for some honey next week, they're being sneaking and filling the frames but leaving maybe 20 cells on each frame open - they know I'm waiting for them to seal them so I can nick the frame I'm sure!

Yep ... watched two of my girls on drone barring duty this morning ... almost felt sorry for the drone - didn't matter which angle he tried to get into the entrance hole the two guards were there before him. Had to leave them to it eventually and push off to work ... wondered all day if he was one of mine or a visitor ? Didn't seem to be fighting - just barring the way.

Not seen any dead drones on the ground under the entrance yet though.

I watched a solitary wasp yesterday evening trying it on ... completely different behaviour from the guard bees - really aggressive towards the wasp. It gave up eventually and flew off - I'm sure I saw a High Five from the two guards !!

Learning all the time as I watch them ...

 

[Luminos]

Spent a time watching the front of the hive with a worker firmly clasping a drone and 'frog' marching him away from the entrance of the hive.

Well, they are French bees...

 

[Firefly]

Thymol on. So it has taken pretty much exactly 3 years to go from "Yes, you can put some bees in my orchard, so long as I have to have nothing to do with them" to rearranging supers, frames and queen excluders to get Apiguard on 7 hives (and treating a few stings from the last hive - because the smoker went out - as par for the course!)

How did it happen?

 

[einsteinagogo]

Started to take off supers & add thymol treatment. A bit of a bee/wasp frenzy but eventually got frames into plastic storage boxes. I have to buy more storage boxes & go back to finish the job as I have quite a few more super frames now than at the start of the season

Frames with honey on will go back to the bees under the BB once treatment is over in September.

what plastic storage boxes did you use?

 

[Leonsaviour]

I set up a small apidea with the optimistic hope that I might mate a recently caught virgin queen. I am not expecting much but it could happen!
Also created a nuc for a mated queen. Just hope I followed the advice I got and all will be well.

 

[herefordshirehoney]

Did my BBKA basic at local association, hopefully passed as the master beekeeper/ex bee inspector gave me a right grilling. Lots of good tips though.

 

[Walrus]

what plastic storage boxes did you use?

45 litre platic storage box - pack of 5
from Amaz*n

 

[user 6228]

one of the solartron multimeters i use for hive conductance caught fire this morning... not fun

 

[ichbinpaul]

one of the solartron multimeters i use for hive conductance caught fire this morning... not fun

I wont ask you if you recomend them then!

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

one of the solartron multimeters i use for hive conductance caught fire this morning... not fun

Which, translated from the Klingon means........?


Dusty

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Which, translated from the Klingon means........?


Dusty

It's the thingummy which measures how warm the hive is I think - Bleddy hot in this case!

 

[user 6228]

It's the thingummy which measures how warm the hive is I think - Bleddy hot in this case!

It measures how much heat I am putting in to hive. I then measure how hot it gets and then work out the conductance. That allows me to compare hives and tree nests.


Bought a replacement ...and the supplier told me it's normally the main filter that goes, and is easily replaceable.

These are ex mod instruments bought 2nd hand

 

[cjhart2]

As insulation has been mentioned several times this year on the forum , decided to cut several sheets of Jablite up to fit into the roofs

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Went to the association hive to sort out one of the member's two nucs - strange set-up - five frame nucs made with national shallows - I think they are mating nucs for the two queens he grafted and bred himself (second year beekeeper so well done him) Bit confusing, noone knows who he is and was supposed to contact the secretary with all his details and his apiary fee but hasn't thus far and hasn't been at the apiary for quite a while; and on the SBI inspecting last week, seriously short of space So today I transferred them into standard national nucs and hoped for the best. I really hope he appreciates the effort gone in to looking after his bees.
Checked my hive and found that the charged supersedure cell we found lasat week is no longer occupied and the queen looking for more laying space, so hopefully they've sorted themselves out as well

 

[Shabro]

United a few colonies

 

[Glenviewbee]

Put Apiguard on both my colonies - had to use a fair amount of Gaffa tape to seal up bad joints between the ekes (homemade) and the brood boxes.... obviously OH wasn't very precise with the straight edges!

 

[Swarm]

Put on clearer boards, bees were delightful and now very busy on the Balsam that has burst into life.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Built a chicken run

 

[MJBee]

Built a chicken run

In the apiary!!

 

[Goran]

Ongoing winter preparations.. Settling things down, feeding where needed, checking the status, nosema prevention, soon bayvarol strips out. Some colonies needed formic acid ( chalk brood).. But less genetics I am more and more considering this was due temperature shocks we had ( extreme high temps, I think several times over 40C). I need to eat a lot of porridge to be sure..
Will have some young queens soon for reserve, cause here in september anything can happen..
Nice to see how they are making their honey winter insulation..
Estimating situation and think upon it will go again this year without winter losses ( hoping)..
For now 49 colonies, one less..