What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Tremyfro]

Inspection day....well not actually scheduled but as we are forecast grotty weather for the next week...thought it best to do whilst it is sunny...though a howling wind!
Both beehaus are flourishing. Lots of brood and making some stores.
National on double brood...again doing well now. Beginning to store some nectar.
Nucs are fine...all got either fondant or frames of honey.
Nuc 1 was left as they have a virgin.
Nuc2 has the cleanezzi queen...the patch of eggs is now capped and she is slowly expanding.
Nuc3 has 3 frames of brood...so given another frame of comb.
The queen in Nuc4 is the new carniolan....she was still in the cage!
I released her!

 

[enrico]

Two nice quiet hives plodding along producing honey, third hive is in woodland, a mistake I won't make again, they produce nothing really and are bordering on needing feeding, fourth hive was hive from hell. It was on two brood box's so slipped a queen excluder in between so that I an reduce the area to look for the queen, typical, eggs in the top box so swapped them round. That was a mistake too! Stroppy lot! cant decide what to do with them. Queen has only just come into lay after replacing a drone layer so I am putting temper down to the fact that all the old bees are winter bees and therefore old and grumpy, hoping that the new bees will be calmer! They are not going to get many more chances to calm down! Luckily they are only stroppy when being inspected so they live to fight another day!
E

 

[victor meldrew]

Stood under an occupied bait hive with a laying Queen . Nice steady bees .
I was pondering on the maximum vertical shift as it's located at 8' in the air and I wish to keep this small colony for my own use .?
Mhh! Do I fx a perch half wayish ? Or drop it 6 ' onto a table ?
Decisions decisions


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[Obee1]

I inspected my three garden hives - they were overdue as its been raining, a lot. Two hives have been changed to 14x12 this spring and the transition is just about complete. The standard frames are finally worked out of bb, but the last few jumbo frames need drawing. I must say I really don't like the 14x12 format. Far too many bees in one large box, even though they are well behaved. Frames are long and heavy. The hives have two/three supers apiece and despite it being 1pm and lots of bees out foraging there were sooo many bees. In the double Bb system I only deal with one half at a time.
However, mustn't complain as plenty of honey in the supers (not all capped) despite having removed some full supers last week that I have yet to extract. Seems they are finding plenty to forage on in the park across the road. Hopefully it's the three huge lime trees opposite
In summary all three queens laying well - all have space to lay and plenty of stores. No swarm preps. Just waiting for the other shoe to drop

 

[victor meldrew]

I've used 14x12s for years now , I like them , I don't find the frames heavy even when full of stores !
One mans meat I suppose


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[nantmoel]

Inspected all 14 hives today, in three different apiaries. The ones which we have super on are starting to really bring the honey in, lets hope we have some nice weather. A hive that swarmed last week, swarmed again today leaving just a handful of bees in the original hive, when I saw them piling out I thought they had followed the virgin queen out on her mating flight (how wrong was I)! They landed in an Oak tree that is right above the hive, some 30' up, no way of getting them down. Lets hope they decide to pop into a bait hive tomorrow. On the up side we also collected a swarm on the way to our out apiary.

 

[Goran]

We had today one bestial storm today. A lot of hazelnuts ended on the ground. Some apples, pears and apricots were "mutilated", some will have to replace. I fear of the some other veggies and fruits, cause all is " flat". Unbelievable amount of "rain" accompanied with strong wind.. It came sudden from nowhere.. Following our every day weather prognosis sunny with posssible shower or teeny weeny storm.. maybe. So we were " fully aware" of it is coming..
Hives stood..

 

[Teemore]

My father went to take off a couple of cleared supers for me yesterday morning. (Rhombus type clearers). He went to the first one and was convinced I had cleared the wrong super. It was light as a feather and on inspection, no honey.... He then left it on the hive for me to look at yesterday evening. The super had been robbed out. There wasn't even a bee in it. There were no gaps into the super so I can only surmise that the bees robbed out their own super and carried the honey down into the remaining supers and the brood box....

 

[Beeline]

I've never had to feed colonies this late in the year!!

Most of those are on single broods with 2016 queens that want to expand but there's very little coming in through the front door with this weather. Temps seems ok but the chilly wind......

Some with part filled supers above were flipped around and fed 1:1 directly onto the brood as many of the frames have no arc of stores. Will swop back supers tomorrow when they've had a few litres.

Sad seeing bramble in flower and nothing working it besides the odd bumble.

 

[Tremyfro]

So far this year I have only had to feed the nucs. The 4 main colonies are feeding themselves. Which is a real bonus. Last year I was feeding from mid July until autumn feeding!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Not long back in from home apiary - was doing my usual quick walk around the hives after checking the fowls (rather pleasant here at the moment) when I noticed that one nuc had a great big clump of bees all over the entrance. This is a paynes nuc in which, a little over a week ago the new queen had mated and had laid half a frame of brood (all open). I decided just to lift the lid to see what was happening inside and I could see the whole box was groaning with bees, even packed in the feeder which is just blocked with the QX strip (having lost the solid one!) decided it couldn't wait until the morning so hived them straight away, she's already laid four frames wall to wall brood and started on the fifth, luckily they've drawn all the foundation out - it was a particularly strong nuc to start with but it did catch me by surprise a bit. The mother's a nice queen from two years ago but I wasn't going to make increase off her - that may change

 

[Obee1]

I went to my field apiary to grab those QC I have on a test frame before they emerge. Managed to do that - the new queens arrive tomorrow -and I have three colonies now hopelessly Q- then thought I'd have a quick peek in a nuc that were a small a/s with one brood frame. Didn't have my records with me so wasn't sure when I did the a/s. Looked in and caught the bees red handed tearing down a QC with a still moving virgin. Right next to her was an emerged cell and remnants of a few others - now vacant. I removed the half dug out virgin who wiggled her legs then died.
As I'm off on holiday soon I hope to return to a laying queen in 3 weeks.

 

[Brian Bush]

The weather here is foul again.
I had caged up some queen cells in a queenless colony so I had to go and check.
5 from 7 had emerged. I released one in the colony and brought the other 4 home to make up mating NUCs. All a bit of a rush!!
Went to harvest some young bees from my best colony. Thinking they had been quiet recently I opened in the drizzle with less trepidation than usual. I found they were broodless and no sign of the queen. No queen cells either sealed or open.
Gave this colony a virgin queen and closed up again. Now am beginning to worry.
Went to the hive next door, harvested the queens I required, now for only 3 mating NUCs and have started to worry.

I have had several calls from other members who have had hives go queenless in this manner. I provided 2 of them with my last batch of virgins and gave another a swarm.


I have never known hives to go queenless in this way. Is it just the weather? Can anyone shed a little light on this, please??

 

[Brian Bush]

I opened a hive on Saturday to find no brood and no queen. I thought I would add a frame of brood with the foundation cut as Miller to raise some replacements. Looked this morning no queen cells been created. Still no sign of a queen.

 

[For want of a better word]

Branding all the mating nucs with the company logo... even the polly ones!

Yeghes da

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I found they were broodless and no sign of the queen. No queen cells either sealed or open..................................................

I have had several calls from other members who have had hives go queenless in this manner. I provided 2 of them with my last batch of virgins and gave another a swarm.

I have never known hives to go queenless in this way. Is it just the weather? Can anyone shed a little light on this, please??

Are they queenless though? I've had a few colonies this year where the queen has gone off lay and no brood present, gone back in a while later and brood has appeared again.

I can see queen breeders sending off quite a few queens to their certain doom by the sounds of it.

 

[beeboybee]

feeding feeding feeding..

 

[chrisb]

rain, rain and more rain. 2 -3 hours they get out in an afternoon if it stops and sun warms things up a bit,

 

[madasafish]

Are they queenless though? I've had a few colonies this year where the queen has gone off lay and no brood present, gone back in a while later and brood has appeared again.

I can see queen breeders sending off quite a few queens to their certain doom by the sounds of it.

Almost all my established hives stopped egg laying when the hawthorn flow ended and the weather went downhill. They have just started again. And now it's 14C and raining most of the day...

It screwed up my queen rearing plans .

But so far my queens I have raised appear to have mated OK..

 

[Tremyfro]

I don't know what my bees are finding but they are still finding nectar. Yesterday was a duvet day for them as it rained all day...brightening up in the evening. Today looks better....is there any hope for this summer?