What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Tremyfro]

Oooooohhhh!!! There is a tiny flow going on here...my tower hive(mainly empty now) is really actually humming. The girls are queuing up to get in and out....fingers and toes crossed tightly...makes walking tricky but I would do anything to help my girls!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Back from a weeks hols in the sun.
Took away a small brood-less nuc (waiting for a poss new queen to lay) that had been robbed. Twenty or so bees clinging glumly to empty frames.
On the brighter side almost every bee in the other boxes is coming home from the Balsam

 

[nantmoel]

Decided to remove some frames of honey that have been capped over, the heather has started to flower so we remove all the frames that were capped. Spun the old extractor up for the first time - Happy Days.

 

[Swarm]

Back from a weeks hols in the sun.
Took away a small brood-less nuc (waiting for a poss new queen to lay) that had been robbed. Twenty or so bees clinging glumly to empty frames.
On the brighter side almost every bee in the other boxes is coming home from the Balsam

Welcome back!
Paid the bees a visit today, we have a nice grove of Balsam in the next field and not a single silverback. They seem to be consolidating as the top supers on most were bone dry. I rarely take early crops because you never know what's around the corner, they've all consumed about half their stores and it looks like one colony will be returning zilch. Couple of wasps about, nice to see them being dragged out of the entrance.

Doesn't look like being a very good year.

 

[Goran]

Packed and gave one colony with 8 frames of brood, 2boxes full of bees, this year queen ( not good for me cause have fast response and bit grumpy). It should bring nice load of black locust next season to this new/small beek.

 

[Cb50]

extracted 25kg of honey, and that included leaving them with a part filled super each.

Started feeding my late swarm as it looked light post my holiday when I checked it, and they have taken 2l down in under a day (or night really as I put it on last night)

Honey came from two hives.

Bright yellow/orange pollen going in.

 

[Goran]

Forgot.
When were lot of talk about laying workers, I decided to play again this year with such colonies. 1st I repeat earlier proven successfull adding open brood frame from other colonies ( every 7 days one frame), 2 times were sufficient and the colonies grow their own emergency queen from added open brood frames. After that 100% successful requeening, and it was instant requeening. I just remove eq, smoked hard and add queen with attendants in a cage. This was driven by some text I read here on the forum.
Further more other colony which has also laying workers, I again added 1 frame of open brood, but rushed and only after 4 days added ripe qcell. They tear it down. I then waited and few days ago they start to make qcells from open brood added. I torn down qcells ( which still weren't closed) and place ripe qcells. Today I checked, queen present and freely walks on the comb.
So if it can be to someone usefull and feel lazy as I do, to don't shake out this is the for me nice lazy way ( "where there's a will there's a way").

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Went to decapitate an underperforming green queen but could not find her. Went to check on a blue queen planned to go to a production colony and decapitated her instead. I have NO IDEA how. Peeled back the nuc cover and there she was twitching and headless. Incredible: I have much to learn.

 

[JWF]

Combined a small nuc with a fairly week hive.

Rearranged supers on my biggest hive with a view to taking them off next and boy were they grumpy. Somehow managed to get stung right between the eyes when one of the little lovelies managed to get into my veil. Aso got stung on the forearm through me suit.

There's plenty of stores in the hive but next to nothing has been added to the supers for weeks, so I'm assuming that flow is now over for the summer, despite the rain and warmer weather recently.

Would the end of flow turn them grumpy? They're normally fairly placid.

This took about 14 hours to arrive, hopefully its not getting any worse

My wife cried and laughed at the same time when she saw me this morning. God knows what the little'un will do lol.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I have much to learn.

I think what I take from this deeply upsetting experience was that you should always have the full complement of frames in a box. So a "three-frame nuc" needs padding out somehow; it can't just be half of even a poly box. The nuc was in my "mating apiary" (apiary shed roof, facing opposite from the main colonies) and I can only think some frames swung or slid as I lifted it down.

 

[Mrs Shoot]

Shook a nuc that had been robbed, only enough bees to cover a frame so didn't seem worth uniting. The half frame of emerging brood was donated to the smallest hive in the apiary to give them a little boost. In the other apiary a good size nuc was drawing QC's on the test frame. Tore down all QC's and have united with the swarm collected a month a go to help build them up to a good size for the winter, queen is laying well in there so they should do well.

 

[dpearce4]

put clearers onto hives at one site. not looking good on quantity though.

 

[Jimmys Mum]

Clearer boards put on the home hives. Might have another 6 late supers to extract with any luck. Feeders were taken off the 5 hives at the out apiary. Checked through the brood boxes and one of them is full of queen cells on the point of being sealed. Grrrr, a 2015 queen too! Rather annoying as I was going to put Apilife Var on tomorrow!

On the upside, I gave a brief talk about my honey and beekeeping to the waiting staff at a local restaurant who are now using my honey in their menus.

 

[Glenviewbee]

Used my clearer boards for the first time (ever) and was very impressed with the results. Only a couple of bees left when I came to take the supers away after having the boards on overnight.
So - I'm going to finally get some honey
Not a lot of honey, but some is better than the big fat zeros of the last 3 summers!

 

[Glenviewbee]

Just had a walk around the field and as I got close to the barn where my bee equipment is kept was dismayed to see a great deal of bee activity. In my excitement of getting some honey off my hives I inadvertently left a cover off one of my stored brood boxes which had some frames in it - though I swear the frames are dry - but obviously enough of a scent to get the interest up from the bees.
Managed to close everything up again so hopefully calm will be restored.

 

[Swarm]

Used my clearer boards for the first time (ever) and was very impressed with the results. Only a couple of bees left when I came to take the supers away after having the boards on overnight.
So - I'm going to finally get some honey
Not a lot of honey, but some is better than the big fat zeros of the last 3 summers!

Well done, enjoy.

 

[gregior]

Got a big show next week so needed to get some comb honey off,I haven't looked at the bees for 2 weeks so wasn't sure what to expect.All the starters (about 40 shallow frames worth)had been fully drawn out,filled and then mostly emptied and are now filled again with fresh nectar Only managed to get 4 frames off that were good to use

All the queens were laying well but there are high varroa loads in the hives too so i treated them all with MAQS.

 

[nantmoel]

Moved two hives into a new Apiary, we just want to see how they adapt to their new environment before we move a few more there. They are closer to Heather were they are now so hopefully they'll bring that in.

 

[Summerslease]

Recently I have treated my three Q+ hives with MAQS. Followed the instructions and for the second year all the queens have survived and are laying again. Took off supers as any flow I had is over. They were very light and I suspected the bees were eating the honey. Now, following the nbu starvation warning I am feeding: and visiting Aldi every other day to buy more sugar.

 

[madasafish]

Recently I have treated my three Q+ hives with MAQS. Followed the instructions and for the second year all the queens have survived and are laying again. Took off supers as any flow I had is over. They were very light and I suspected the bees were eating the honey. Now, following the nbu starvation warning I am feeding: and visiting Aldi every other day to buy more sugar.

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