What did you do in the Apiary today?

[BrianO]

Nipped in, as you do,' on way home from work and sat there just watching them coming and going on a summers evening ??? ( 14 degrees !! ) .

God they work hard, bundling in and out with pollen and nectar, great to watch

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Called in at the association apiary this morning to check feed on one of the nucsbees were out flying in the pi............absolutely torrential rain - got back in the car and went to work

 

[jd101k2000]

Checked all hives. All doing well with BIAS except one. That is evidently queenless. Queen had emerged but was nowhere to be seen. Combined with the nucleus containing the mother of the missing daughter.

Also removed drone brood from strongest colony. Seems to be a minor infestation of varroa on checking the advanced stage drones. Only spotted one mite on a couple of hundred brood. Also spotted one mite on an adult drone. Their brothers were left out for the birds.

 

[Goran]

Formed 2 mating nucs, now on cooling.. Done also 2 splits. This evening when I were returning from apiaries the sky was so unreal purple filled with dark grey clouds in various shapes and density in a distance.. Still didn't repair camera and can't give you a pic. I stopped for a while and enjoyed in the view.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

A really discouraging day

Learnt that drone foundation in supers and QE-less beekeeping cannot be combined. At all. Ever.

Buckybeast has almost no stores.

Bit the bullet on the Little Green Queen: she never existed, so I recombined.

No sign of regal presence or activity on the two post-swarm colonies either. Patience: the swarm left on 19 May. Plus 8 is 10 days ago so maybe OK.
Threw a test frame into the less well-behaved anyway.

Losing a swarm is a bad idea, it turns out.

 

[jd101k2000]

Removed a number of patches of drone brood that was just emerging. Had it in the open, well away from hives. There were a couple of nurse bees that remained with it. As the drones emerged, the varroa waited for the nurse bees to pass by and latched on... Just as the books say they would.

The daily drop from that hive was 1 per day last week. It would have been a lot higher if I had left those drone in!

 

[Ben90]

Speaking for yesterday, but I found the colony I A/Sed and reunited once the new queen was laying a week and a half ago has queen cells again. So... A/S time again.

New queen in another hive is laying well.

One of my colonies has surprised me by superceding its 1 year old queen, and I found an open supercedure cell and then found a virgin on the comb, though I had spotted her seemingly limping around a frame a couple of weeks back, so she was probably injured somehow.

Fed a couple of nucs which seem to be feeling the full force of the June gap, with the wax being torn off of all their stores.

 

[Tabby15]

I know nothing goes to plan but I had made one before I started today!
Hive one - still no sign of eggs or a queen and is three weeks post emergence of queen from cell (happened whilst we were inspecting). So plan to drop test frame of eggs in which we did
Hive two - demaree performed three weeks ago - plan to remove top BB and one super and do usual inspection. Unfortunately in bottom BB No sign of queen, no eggs and found 9 queen cells, some sealed, some not. Knocked down all except one which was not sealed and had a large larvae in it. Rechecked that had knocked down all others! Shook bees from top BB into bottom, removed one super and have left them to it.
Hive three (swarm) - the donor of the test frame. All looks well but they are not pulling much in the super, though weather has been rubbish. BIAS but did not spot queen, even though we marked her last week.

 

[cjhart2]

The weather has finally turned hot in France , pity it has force 7 winds behind it , come on mother nature , give the girls a chance , they are being blown every where they come out the hive .

 

[YorkshireBees]

Yesterday in the warm evening I checked 2 Nucs being collected at the weekend, They are bursting with brood so going just in time!

Mowed the grass in front of 2 hives and was pleasantly surprised that they didn't object too much.

 

[davidchevell]

Great Day

Things have calmed, 10 colonies up to now 8 are queen right and one is drone layer and one queen less needing to be amalgamated with its original . Now need some honey to make a good year .

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Forecast for tomorrow is wet so I took advantage of the sunshine to inspect.
Having a significant part of the workforce out foraging meant I finally found an elusive queen in hive 2. She's a fast mover but I shepherded her into a plunger marking cage and decorated her back with a spot of paint

 

[Ely]

Picked up a poly national super not knowing another was stuck beneath. It fell and broke into 3 pieces ..bees and honey frames everywhere

 

[Jimmys Mum]

Checked on a hive united over newspaper at the start of the week after an AS earlier in the season. No sign of the lovely newly mated queen who was performing beautifully, just a big bunch of emergency queen cells

Some you win, some you lose. Ho hum.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Went for a spin to pick up six mated dark queens. Made acquaintance with a pure bred open mated Colonsay queen - looked just like - a dark queen bee. almost bought her until a voice echoed in my ear - don't be so soft!.
After delivering a few queens went to the association apiary and decorated fence post with poor performing queen (first time I've found the b**ger since we inherited the nuc she was in last year!) and put new queen in - taped up introduction cage)
Back at my own apiary removed a poor performing queen from one of my nucs (swarm caught last year) and put a new queen in that one. On a queen finding roll now I inspected one of the busier hives and spotted a queen I haven't seen since I marked her last year then removed three frames of brood to make up a nuc for the other queen I bought - all this between heavy rain showers - funnily enough it's fine again now

 

[Tom Bick]

Found my third Q- hive today?? I know of a few others close to me in the same situation, something in the air??

 

[Jimmy]

Found eggs in two q- halves of splits. Even better, managed to find, catch (several times) and clip the wing of one of the new queens. I was lucky that this queen was useless at flying when egg-bound.

Added a 2nd brood chamber to 2 new buckfast Qs who were filling each frame with brood.


Complete dearth of nectar- had some ~12 surplus brood frames full of stores that were stored in a what i thought was a bee-tight spare brood chamber that have been robbed dry.
My apiary is in an old plum orchard full of orchids that are now flowering with the melilot about to. Bramble and white clover just starting.
On way back to car, saw two roe deer some 100 m away. So all in a very positive 2 hours after work inspecting 10 hives.

Sent from my XT890 using Tapatalk

 

[Erichalfbee]

Found my third Q- hive today?? I know of a few others close to me in the same situation, something in the air??

Tell me!!!
I have one hive that swarmed on a supercedure cell which has now disappeared.
Lots of bees and just the remains of the old brood yet to emerge. I put in a test frame today. Another is an AS which continued to produce queen cells so I removed queen into a nuc, left one queen cell which is now open but I missed one which emerged in front of my eyes on inspection yesterday and disappeared into the hive......bugger!!!!!
I found one queen cup with a smidgin of royal jelly in a combined colony. I haven't any room left, aaarrgh!

What a year! Keeping me on my toes. I bet Heidi with her attitude towards swarming doesn't dream about her bees with the intensity I do.

At least the veg patch,the greenhouse and the meadow are looking good.

 

[Chris Luck]

Found my third Q- hive today?? I know of a few others close to me in the same situation, something in the air??

Chem trails, neonics, BT toxin, varroa, UKIP or good old simple natural causes?

Chris

 

[Tom Bick]

Tell me!!!
I have one hive that swarmed on a supercedure cell which has now disappeared.
Lots of bees and just the remains of the old brood yet to emerge. I put in a test frame today. Another is an AS which continued to produce queen cells so I removed queen into a nuc, left one queen cell which is now open but I missed one which emerged in front of my eyes on inspection yesterday and disappeared into the hive......bugger!!!!!
I found one queen cup with a smidgin of royal jelly in a combined colony. I haven't any room left, aaarrgh!

What a year! Keeping me on my toes. I bet Heidi with her attitude towards swarming doesn't dream about her bees with the intensity I do.

At least the veg patch,the greenhouse and the meadow are looking good.

I would like to say my three missing queens are down to swarming but no hives full of emergency queen cells. The other thing that happened at the same time most of my other hives went off lay.