What did you do in the Apiary today?

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Found eggs in 3 out of 4 nucs with introduced queens; in the 4th they were still working through the fondant in the queen introduction cage after 1 week. Fed all 4 nucs with some thymolated syrup and a fifth nuc that was getting a touch light.
Rearranged some supers on my strongest hive so that hopefully they'll consolidate 3 partially filled supers into one capped one.
Admired the three freshly drawn brood frames full of thymolated syrup in a colony that hasn't done much all year.
 
(yesterday) Removed supers, swapped one brood box, spun and put a couple of supers back on for the bees to clean.

Harvested less honey than I'd hoped for, a lot of it must had been from later flowering OSR as it had set rock hard, but the flavour of what did come out was absolutely top notch.
 
United a queenless hive back to it's parent hive.
Swore a lot at the nasty colony as they didn't want me near them.
Checked varroa drop again but it's low, going to treat anyway.
Asked one hive why they were not drawing comb like the others have. They didn't answer me lol
Found 4 wasps above the crownboard on one hive, don't know how they got there as there is no hole for them to get through from the hive. Changed the roof just incase it has a gap.
 
Have started building a new hive floor with a varroa mesh, as the existing one is a solid one.
I'm going to make the entrance based on the periscope idea here and see how it works compared to the other hive's normal entrance.
/showpost.php?p=302987&postcount=34
(I can't post links yet, but I'm sure you can work out the above :)
 
Have started building a new hive floor with a varroa mesh, as the existing one is a solid one.
I'm going to make the entrance based on the periscope idea here and see how it works compared to the other hive's normal entrance.
/showpost.php?p=302987&postcount=34
(I can't post links yet, but I'm sure you can work out the above :)
Under floor entrance?
All my hives are sitting on these.
 
Have started building a new hive floor with a varroa mesh, as the existing one is a solid one.
I'm going to make the entrance based on the periscope idea here and see how it works compared to the other hive's normal entrance.
/showpost.php?p=302987&postcount=34
(I can't post links yet, but I'm sure you can work out the above :)

Plans attached if this is what you mean:

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=26994
 
A quick walk to the new apiary site, for quick visual inspection, just to check no hives have blown over, all hives in place, all was quite, it has got very cold this evening.

You would not have thought any bees were around, I quickly had a look under the roofs, all the hives have clear coverboards.

A bucket of MAQS arrived today to start treatment for 7 days on Saturday, supers to go back on, new floors, and reduced entrance blocks, getting ready for winter. Also on Sat, move a nuc to national.
 
Works both ways JBM :)
I had a welsh born oppo when in the mob .
He explained his father had lived in Wales 27 years , he was a member of various organisations and was allowed vote , stipulation being ,he could only raise his arm half way up :)
He insisted it was true but was done very much tongue in cheek :)
There's such banter between towns / villages let alone countries .
VM


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

John
I don't want to bother JBM but the Scotland/Wales 'jibe' was a oblique reference to
the Barnet formula, nice bit of racist legislation that seems to be swept under the carpet!;)
 
Well, not in the apiary and last night, but took around 100lbs from three and a half supers.

Two were the heaviest I have ever had and one of those (the heaviest) had three frames with half drawn frames of cut comb.

Lovely honey, too.
 
Having extracted two supers a few days ago I was planning to let the bees clean them up but realised some frames had quite a bit of crystallised honey still in them. I took a spoon to them and scraped back to the foundation in the appropriate parts, dropping the yield into a bucket of warm water and yeast and stirring. I reckon there would be about 4 lbs of honey altogether so with encouragement it should be fermenting soon. :)
 
Topped up the feeders with more syrup. Nucs much better at taking syrup from a thornes polynuc feeder than from a Payne's nuc's integral feeder. Reduced the entrances down to 3cm to give them a chance against the wasps.
 
Watching my hives today...the air is thick with bees coming from the HB. Queuing up to get into the hives. Don't think there will be much feeding happening here! Loads of lemon coloured pollen going into the nuc. We really need to move them into a hive...
 
:iagree:

Miss that on the TV - you could ignore all the rubbish the clown standing in front of the chart was telling you and work out for yourself what the weather was doing - the beeb have even dumbed down the shipping forecasts - they used to list the 'actuals' on the end of each forecast (wind strength,direction, what the barometer was doing and visibility at various weather stations across the UK) you could then draw your own isobars and work out your own forecast.

Yes ... I've spent many a happy hour frantically scribbling down the shipping forecast and drawing my own isobar charts ... I've not listened to the shipping forecast for a few years now - sad to hear that it too is succumbing to the lure of iphones, tablets, internet and USER FRIENDLY (for that read *******) systems ... doing it from scratch is not something I ever really enjoyed BUT the ability to do it and work out what is happening is a skill that is probably going to be confined mainly to the professional weather forecasters in the future ! I'm not a luddite by any stretch of the imagination but the theory behind the *******, filterted, watered down graphics is essential if you rely on the weather for any reason. But ... it's a general trait - not just confined to the weather.

I rescued (or at least diverted) a family in a stinkboat a couple of years ago ... heading straight for the Bramble Bank in the middle of the Solent at about 20 knots at just before low water .. the driver (I hesitate to call the idiot a skipper) thought I was in trouble at my frantic waving, slowed down and came alongside - he clearly didn't believe me when I told him what he was heading for 'as his GPS had given him the course' ... yeh ... little knowledge and modern electronics have a lot to answer for .... and if you can't read paper charts then electronic ones are not a lot of use either.

Rant over ... Sorry ...:offtopic:
 
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Isobars, do any school graduates know what these are, or is it all about climate change in geography classes these days.
 
Yes, the olent does have more than it'a fair share of waterborne id!ots (both motirised and wind assisted) my first unsupervised watch not long before i was put on the beack had my blood pressure up with some moron in a gin palace deciding as there were no traffic lights he could ignore the rule of the road and cut across my bows at a cable's length approaching the Poole fairway buoy. Luckily I'd spotted from afar the bright neon sign above his head flashing 'd!ckhead' in highly visible red and had anticipated his actions, don't think his little gassfibre sunseeker would have had much of a chance against twenty odd tons of steel pushing along at twenty odd knots!
 
Yes, the olent does have more than it'a fair share of waterborne id!ots (both motirised and wind assisted) my first unsupervised watch not long before i was put on the beack had my blood pressure up with some moron in a gin palace deciding as there were no traffic lights he could ignore the rule of the road and cut across my bows at a cable's length approaching the Poole fairway buoy. Luckily I'd spotted from afar the bright neon sign above his head flashing 'd!ckhead' in highly visible red and had anticipated his actions, don't think his little gassfibre sunseeker would have had much of a chance against twenty odd tons of steel pushing along at twenty odd knots!

Yes ... I've seen the aftermath of a yacht under sail thinking they could dice across the front of a car carrier coming out of Southampton Water ... they are like a block of flats on their side and the amount of water they push ahead of them is incredible ... it must have been pretty scary for the people on board the yacht as it got caught by the invisible bow wave and then got dragged down the side of the car carrier and spewed out the back. They were lucky to be afloat and alive after that ... I'm sure they were screaming 'Rule of the Road' at the CC but obviously had not read the bit about 'Vessels confined by virtue of their draft' bit ....
 
Husband used to be part of a Lake District mountain rescue team where rescues as a result of walkers relying on GPS with poor signal on the hilltops was a common occurrence.

Anybody remember Eric Abbott who despite being rescued nine times in a year using road maps to navigate his way round the British Isles is described in the media as a solo "yachtsman" ?

I loved listening to the shipping forecast when I was a kid. It, sadly, was replaced by Radio Luxembourg under the covers with my head pressed to the tranee as the music ebbed and flowed amidst all the white noise.

In later years I read Attention All Shipping which was a voyage round the shipping forecast; a great read.
 

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