What did you do in the Apiary today?

[coventry bee boy]

what can i do please top make sure my bee's are warm enough - its so windy

 

[oliver90owner]

Leave the roof in place. Nowhere near as windy as at times earlier in the year.

 

[Cellectronic]

A quick check on 4 colonies. All have a super on with some part filled / crystallised frames from last year as a reserve of stores. All 4 hives had plenty of bees in the super cleaning the frames up, swapped some now empty frames for some more with stores and found at least one hive that was storing small amounts of fresh nectar in the super!!!

I have mine setup the same , Cleaning some wet frames.
Trouble is I checked them yesterday and they are starting to build brace comb between the frames.
My super box is set up as 3 wet frames , a slab of fondant (and brace comb) and 3 more wet frames.

 

[garlicpickle]

I popped down briefly to take the mouseguards off as I'm just about to go away for 2 weeks. There's still fondant on both hives and they were up in it, so I decided to leave it on until I come back.

 

[YorkshireBees]

I have mine setup the same , Cleaning some wet frames.
Trouble is I checked them yesterday and they are starting to build brace comb between the frames.
My super box is set up as 3 wet frames , a slab of fondant (and brace comb) and 3 more wet frames.

I try never to leave any space that the bees will build wild comb in!

Bees respect beespace generally!

 

[Goran]

And now something completelly different

Day temps are here over 21 celsius for now, all is about month earlier ( more or less depends).
At 17th March make first serious frame manipulations in the hives, was very curious how one queen ( jenter 2011.) is going..
7 frames of brood

There will be some queen rearing, also have some candidates for replacement - aggressive, swarming tendency, etc.. But all queens are present despite their qualities.

Others from 3-7 frames of brood, avg. 5,8, but not finished all yet. I think will be around 5 at the end.
Wild cherry is opening

 

[beeno]

Sunny, but windy and chilly, so I am surprised how active the hives are. They are busy carrying water, but a fair amount are flying off foraging. However, not much pollen to see, so it must be nectar coming in. I guess they think they have enough pollen stores for the time being.

 

[Tabby15]

First full inspection. Hive one- opened up to find wild comb in the super I had put on it with three part filled frames of honey for them to take. Cleaned that up and having discovered 7 frames of brood and 3 of stores, I moved the two empty frames closer to the brood nest, put on a queen excluder and filled up the super with drawn frames. It's only March. And they were very very lively!

Hive two - a bit quieter. Plenty of brood and plenty of pollen plus some nectar.

This is my second year - expect it will be as roller coaster as last year. Evidence of both queens but only saw one. Have horrible feeling that law of beekeeping will mean she managed to get into the super.

 

[ianorsven]

Weighed hives for probably the last time before next winter. Stores calculated at approx. 4, 6 and 4 kg in each of three hives respectively. (Starting weights in October were 19, 17 and 19kg stores.)
By far the greatest drops in weight occurred between Dec and Feb - the rest of the stores seem to have been used up pretty steadily at all other periods.
Decision over the next couple of weeks will be whether to remove any remaining frames full of stores and replace with drawn brood frames to provide laying space, Not inclined to do so yet as the weather has turned quite cold. However the nearby OSR is starting to flower!

 

[Swarm]

And now something completelly different

Day temps are here over 21 celsius for now, all is about month earlier ( more or less depends).
At 17th March make first serious frame manipulations in the hives, was very curious how one queen ( jenter 2011.) is going..
7 frames of brood

There will be some queen rearing, also have some candidates for replacement - aggressive, swarming tendency, etc.. But all queens are present despite their qualities.

Others from 3-7 frames of brood, avg. 5,8, but not finished all yet. I think will be around 5 at the end.
Wild cherry is opening

Sounds like things are about to get quite busy.

 

[Goran]

Sounds like things are about to get quite busy.

Yes, today I didn't take the photos, but forests are more and more in white of wild cherries mostly. First rearanging done, next week another one. Gone through all the hives, unfortunatelly will dismantle one badly hit with chalk brood ( don't want to lose my time on trying to recover it, in fact have no much free time)..
But all are pretty stuffed with pollen which gives me hope to colonies will be prepared for black locust forage if weather behave.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Nothing today...went to the welsh Convention.
Husband decided to finally make some sort of start to the onerous task of clearing the invading rushes in the apiary pond. He discovered a mallard nest with 15 eggs in it so that's the pond clearing for this year!!

 

[Swarm]

Kites and ducks, you really are lucky

 

[Erichalfbee]

Yes, it's wonderful. Our Kite nest was destroyed by the winter storms and the female of the pair, having spent the year in the locality, disappeared leaving her mate calling and calling. Four weeks later he seems to have found a new mate and they are building a new nest.
I help them out with the odd day old chick which they come down into the field to take when I call them.

 

[YorkshireBees]

Stood in the shed listening to the rain bounce off the tin roof!

Decided my idea and placing the concrete slabs, for hive bases, in one of my out apiaries was out of the question!

Instead finished cleaning and preparing supers and brood boxes.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

What sort of weather are you expecting?

Chris

It's gone very cold and forecast is mixed.

 

[Chris Luck]

It's gone very cold and forecast is mixed.

I expect they will be OK if they cuddle up.

Chris

 

[beeno]

My colonies are still working hard despite 8-9C and a fairly stiff breeze.

 

[YorkshireBees]

Sunny and cold this morning so finally got to an out apiary to set the 6 concrete flags in place ready to move the hives onto. Determind to get them
a) Level
b) Anchored down this year (at least 2 of the hives have been blown over 1-2 times each this winter!

Thought I probably wouldn't need the beesuit (had it in th car anyway).

Not much activity as expected so got the first few flags set and then the wind dropped a bit and when I turned round decided I may need the beesuit after all.

 

[REDWOOD]

Checked fondant and hefted hives in between hail showers and locked my keys in my van