What did you do in the Apiary today?

[aberreef]

I think it's getting close, they are blocking drone comb atm but still nothing in ant of the Queen cups. There are 2 better formed cells but these are empty as far as I can see.

I'm kind of wishing this colony was in a national hive now. I'd be overrun with oney by now

Still like my TBH though

 

[Chris Luck]

Main source of pollen here at the moment is from Cocksfoot, bees taking it in by the bucket.

Chris

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Lovely photo chris.

 

[Chris Luck]

Thanks, trouble is they don't stop moving....

(I bet you all thought that pollen was a mite.).

Chris

 

[YorkshireBees]

Inspected 8.5 of my 11 colonies before the rain called it a day for me!

Going to be away 11-12 days so had to get as much done as possible.

Got rid of the Queen from my unbelievable aggressive colony and will knock out the QC's when I get back and give them a frame of eggs from one of my much calmer colonies. Today they didn't even wait till I started on their hive but one came to find me at my car 10-15m away in the field. It then proceeded to attack the neck of my fleece, I had just taken my beesuit off to add the fleece as an extra layer! Anyway managed to get the fleece off and put the beesuit on and then found the bee still furiously jabbing its sting into the fleece before it finally flew away back to the hive.

Compared to that the other colonies are all doing fine, although I am hoping for some nice Queen mating flight weather as I have several colonies now with new Virgin queens but no sign of eggs after 3-4 weeks. If they haven't started by the time I get back I may be running around putting test frames in, although they all seemed happy and had lots of polished cells waiting / pollen incoming.

Going back to the queen I removed, it was a shame as she was lovely and big and laying like crazy, quite a dark colour but totally unacceptable behavior from the bees!

 

[drstitson]

had an inspection by local RBI - clean bill of health - but in process spotted a couple of newly emerged virgin queens in my splits AND heard piping for the first time (i wouldn't have noticed if i'd been alone).

 

[BBK]

A bit cool for an inspection at the moment although do need to get in there at some point over the weekend. Satisfied myself with taking a few shots of the girls bringing in the OSR pollen. Go girls!!!

 

[BBK]

And here are the photos - hopefully!

 

[Headnavigator]

Chuffed to bits to find eggs/larva/brood in virgin queen swarm colony - obviously no longer a virgin. This was my first peek ten days after hiving. I thought she might have mated on the fourth day, looks like my obs were right! Good quick result - jubilant!

 

[Bryanthebee]

anti swaming

had to take the queen out of my hive today getting ready to swam, tear down the new queen cells next inspection and add a new frame of eggs, then tear down new queen cells again.

hope to have new queen by then, this hive is very agressive from last year breading with local drones in which must be very aggressive.

shame she layed like a nutter at the beginning of the year.

 

[Ely]

Not today but Tuesday. Installed my new nucleus of bees into my hive. Following Thursday took off the super by advise of Tony (silly me). Every other day, watch the bees come and go for 20 mins and back to work! It's great to finally have bees!!

 

[freethorpe bees]

Checked my old queen in her sparkly new hive, what a sweet little colony ( at the moment). Five frames drawn with bias. Very pleased!

 

[picton farm]

Last night I installed 8 of thornes new queen excluders (the replacements for the harmless bee killing ones). Some were under broods to try to delay swarming on a couple of hives. When I got in last night I discovered that the replacement frames were also faulty so Today I got up as soon as it was getting light and took the queen excluders off again. After that, whilst I was talking to a customer, one of my bees landed on my head and couldnt seem to extract itself from my hair so foolishly I flicked it out.
It hit the man I was talking to and he flicked it away, it hit his wife and she also flicked it away. At that very moment my husband stepped out of the chicken run in front of her and the bee landed right on the end of his nose... stinger first! I feel more than a little bit guilty!

 

[Queens59]

Painted two MBS jumbo nuc boxes, and emailed T****s about the excluder - to be told they are sending a wire replacement...

 

[MuswellMetro]

Decided that as it was blowing a gale today that i had better not open up hives today

but as forecaste is the same tomorrow decided to feed three re queening nucs with 1L thin 1:1 syrup (actually 1.25 to 1 as i use 1pint of water to 1lb of sugar)

two are on ( 3 mile) apiary and are in fields of flowered OSR. So took out tthe Nuc plastic rapid feeders put them on top of the car. silly me!!!!, then chased them half way across a 20 acre field

decided i might also need to strap the nucs roofs on

also gave a caste 500ml of syrup and had a quick peek, as it is in very sheltered wall garden location but dont look good as it now has a QC on two frames of bees and brood of about 2x 50p size, might call it quits on this one, see how it goes, knowing me though i will donate an AS queen to it when i combine

 

[Juststarting]

Feed mine today 1:1 Syrup. Very worried about a nuc that was on point of starvation despite being previously fed (obviously not enough) but I'm really cross with myself as I was pushed for time during my inspection of Friday so left this one for checking until today!

Hope I'm not to late and that there are enough bees left for it to survive.

 

[Somerford]

Ely - welcome on board to the bee'keeping' bit !

Picton - PeteinWilts has the same problem, apparently Thornes are replacing them with metal QXs FOC too....I haven't had the same issue with the green QXs from Maise more

Last night put clearer boards on 2 very strong hives, today removed another super off each, making 2 off one and 1 off another, together with some BC frames to extract from a swarmed hive.....Never in 20 years of beekeeping have I extracted so much so early. what with 60lb taken 2 weeks ago, it looks like a fine start to the season.

Helped PeteinWilts do a split in gale force winds and about to collect a swarm this evening that has been left in a nuc a few miles away (not from my bees I hasten to add!)

Oh and thanks to Peteinwilts I am now back online via his wireless technology....

Happy beekeeping to all

Somerford

 

[drstitson]

transferred the 2nd of two 14x12 nucs into a MB jumbo lang poly nuc during a lull in the wind.

painted a handful of MB poly nuc supers as had time on my hands and didnt want to be caught out when nucs expand a bit more.

using some spare knocked up a crownboard for a nat nuc that was CB-less and a jumbo lang dummy board ready for when one of my nucs needs moving "upmarket".

 

[milkermel]

Did my first ASwarm today, fingers crossed! have seen bees investigating my bait hive, but there is a part drawn part filled frame with some honey in so they may just be robbing it? wait and see

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

(Yesterday) Had two small nucs trying to introduce queen - one queen died off and the nuc was reunited with its mother colony. The other queen was still in her cage, candy largely ignored though there were bees around her (to my uintrained eye didnt look overly aggreesive). Slid back entrance but left her in there and will go back in a few days.

Started a bailey move from DN to 14x12 on a recently purchased nuc which has been doing very well.

And extracted a few drops of the golden stuff. Only about 3 lbs, but I wasnt expecting any at all, and gave me a chance to play with new extractor.