What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Obee1]

I went into my garden hives and removed the capped frames from supers. There are lots of not quite ready frames I left on. Hope they don't eat it all before I come back from holiday. My hive that appears to be queenless I took all supers from and going to fed them today. Their numbers are dwindling now and I've had all the honey they can spare for this year. I may well pop another test frame in - (last one failed) if I can find one that doesn't deplete donor hive too much. I love them - but not enough to risk my fave hive (shh don't tell them I have favourites)

 

[Erichalfbee]

Two supers off one dwindling colony and one off another in a similar state. Odd wasp going in but generally they were being fended off. One has capped a test frame and I haven't two more spare so I'm uniting these two then I will try again and sort them a queen as I have two spare.
Wasps are bad everywhere this year and we can't eat out in the garden. Grrrrr

 

[nantmoel]

I went into my garden hives and removed the capped frames from supers. There are lots of not quite ready frames I left on. Hope they don't eat it all before I come back from holiday. My hive that appears to be queenless I took all supers from and going to fed them today. Their numbers are dwindling now and I've had all the honey they can spare for this year. I may well pop another test frame in - (last one failed) if I can find one that doesn't deplete donor hive too much. I love them - but not enough to risk my fave hive (shh don't tell them I have favourites)

I hope you enjoy your break, the bees will mis you! lol

 

[Obee1]

I looked through my queenless(?) hive but soon gave up. Nasty bees! So pinched a frame of tiny bucky larvae and gave it to them. As I'm going on holibobs I won't ever know if they raise an eQC or indeed an actual queen as all evidence would be torn down before I look in next. So... If eggs mysteriously appear I will never know if they came from my test frame or the bees have already made a queen from 36b. One would be bucky origin, one Carni.
Don't know why I'm fretting about the origins of possible eggs from a queen that probably doesn't exist. Maybe I'm procrastinating as I have a pile of ironing staring at me

 

[dpearce4]

started taking empty supers off.

god its a poor season here.

 

[Fatbee]

Went through to check queens after MAQS use two weeks ago. No problems, queens all present, laying and plenty of larva and capped brood suggests no significant going off lay. I'm in the 'can't see what the issue is with MAQS' camp. Never lost queen (although might have triggered August swarm last year), may just be lucky but good to get treatment done early. Drop rate justified the treatment.

Bees calmest they have been all summer - not sure why - less stress now taken a bunch of varoaa out? Who knows but when like lambs reaffirms not to bother with feisty bees.

 

[B+.]

I forgot to mention this yesterday.
I released the queen (6-172-15-2013-K) I received from The Netherlands from her cage and she seems to have been accepted by the colony.

 

[Goran]

Today before the dark started to rain. Strange, almost forgot how it looks when rain. It is pretty sad picture to see a lot of trees has lot of yellow leaves like when is Autumn, meadows scorched.. Bees are now calming down, overall temper nicer as each year at this time. Now like they say OK, enough is enough, let's prepare for winter. Till recently they weren't intensivelly making honey arches for their " winter nest", but I think will accelerate transfering honey from bottom box. Till recently as they had no much space in upper box due to full frames of brood - they stored pollen and nectar bellow, rich stores of pollen makes me comfort for spring build up. Mostly they are now on 7-8 frames of brood, decreasing laying.

 

[B+.]

Mostly they are now on 7-8 frames of brood, decreasing laying.

Do you treat for varroa Goran?

 

[Goran]

Do you treat for varroa Goran?

Yes. Natural fall in 7 days in few hives I test 1-3 varroa, after one treatment 69 - 41 varroa after 24 hours post treatment. But maybe ants messed me up, not much oil I place on paper in a tray. But I have cunning plan for next one ( lard)..

 

[B+.]

But maybe ants messed me up, not much oil I place on paper in a tray. But I have cunning plan for next one ( lard)..

I use sticky-backed plastic sheets when I do the natural mite fall test. Try those, they work much better.

 

[Goran]

I use some paper from advertising leaflets, cut it and with brush sunflower oil. After check I change it. But will this time brush with lard from kitchen ( we have lard we made from pigs, so cost me nothing) and some people told me that are using it and no ant problems..

 

[B+.]

we have lard we made from pigs, so cost me nothing

Free is even better ;-)

 

[Pete D]

Took 130lb off 2 hives, chucked out a queenless hive, treated an apiary with MAQ's. Started a stocktake.

 

[ianorsven]

Yesterday shook out long term queenless hive with suspect DLWs. Bees from this had 4 queen right hives to beg entry from. They returned to original hive site, swirled around a bit then settled on nearest hive to original. Covered front and side. This was the hive I had earlier in the day found and marked the queen. I spent best part of an hour watching them beg entry. Very little fuss but fair congestion (reduced entrances because of wasps) - no fighting and "home" bees still coming and going. Fascinating to watch as the displaced bees slowly got in. However, a little concerned about newly marked queen.

Today, checked. Very few dead bees in front of hive. Opened to check status of queen and there she was striding about! Good feeling!!

 

[Erichalfbee]

ianorsven
That is a tale to warm the cockles of the shake-out doubters.
Thanks for posting it.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Nothing much today - drizzly rain most of it and getting heavier this evening decided to spend a few minutes cutting back the mint and bits of hedge that were beginning to block the gate to the apiary when I noticed that despite the wet day the bees were flying in force -went up to carreg to feed two newly hived nucs that were a bit light on stores, and the same story there, bees flying on a mission despite the rain. innit nice to have locally adapted bees ?

 

[BrianO]

Watched mine out on local bramble, still plenty of unopened buds and bees working the open Bramble flowers at a frenetic pace in warm 21 degree evening sunshine

 

[ianorsven]

Thanks, Erichalfbee - one of those days when things went well!

 

[pargyle]

Nothing much today - drizzly rain most of it and getting heavier this evening decided to spend a few minutes cutting back the mint and bits of hedge that were beginning to block the gate to the apiary when I noticed that despite the wet day the bees were flying in force -went up to carreg to feed two newly hived nucs that were a bit light on stores, and the same story there, bees flying on a mission despite the rain. innit nice to have locally adapted bees ?

Yes .. it's been a miserable wet day down here as well but I too was surprised to see a lot of bees flying. Mine usually don't mind a bit of drizzle and a few do fly but there were a lot of flyers and they were even flying when it was raining quite hard...

If it's fine tomorrow I'm going to have a look at the stores situation - can't believe they were out collecting if the larder is full at home ? Forecast, unfortunately, is not promising I'm afraid ...