What did you do in the Apiary today?

[linoleum bonypart]

Some weird and wonderful pollen colours going in today
Didn't check drop

 

[Tonyatcwfarm]

6 nucs made up through Pagden failures have laying queens on inspection today
Think I'll overwinter these and offer for sale next spring all going well
Decided not to inspect BBs of my 4biggest colonies trusting that they are set up for season

 

[BrianO]

Some weird and wonderful pollen colours going in today
Didn't check drop

Here crap temps, what a Kicker as Tillia Spp. / Lime is at its peak flowering now. Windy and temps peaking at a miserable 17 degrees ... Ahhh

 

[victor meldrew]

Fed a tiny Queen right swarm .


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[jenkinsbrynmair]

Did a few inspections this afternoon, checked on the queen given to me By Protheroe last week and introduced before going away for our long weekend - happily wandering across one frame and already two frames of open brood developing.
Checked out of work at 1645 with the intention of having a nice meal and a relax before changing into my glad rags for a rather important meeting.....hmm
flustered call from a lady a few miles away with a swarm in her garden and worried as she cared for her grandchildren during the day and could I help.
Turned up dressed for the meeting, quickly assessed the situation - nice little swarm clustered on a hanging cotoneaster branch at a convenient waist height - jacket on, left my gloves at home, but a few quick snips with secateurs and the whole cluster safely in a nuc which I collected in the dusk on the way home.

 

[Goran]

Yesterday.. My gloves were completelly wet ( not to mention suittt...).. Couple hours on 37C, what a joy..

 

[Lucky Bee]

Checked my first ever attempt at an apidea mating nuc today. Made it up with a virgin queen on 26th June and today there were EGGS!

 

[alldigging]

I clipped a queen's wing yesterday.
First time.
No audience else I think my hands would have been shaking too much.

 

[Robbo8916]

I clipped a queen's wing yesterday.
First time.
No audience else I think my hands would have been shaking too much.

I marked for the first time on Tuesday. I dared not do the clipping as I don't have the steadiest of hands anyway. They would have both ended up headless I imagine!

First mark was perfect, second one not so good hehe

 

[Erichalfbee]

Wasp traps deployed ....I've seen wasps trying their luck with the weakest colony. Luckily it's not at the end of the line of hives.
Outside the apiary.....in the kitchen....I've started to soft set a bucket of pongy dandelion honey.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Checked my first ever attempt at an apidea mating nuc today. Made it up with a virgin queen on 26th June and today there were EGGS!

Put the QE on stat.
Congratulations! Great feeling isn't it...

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[jenkinsbrynmair]

I've started to soft set a bucket of pongy dandelion honey.

I've nearly sold all of mine (150 lbs odd of it) it may pong a bit but the flavour is absolutely superb - everyone's been banging on about it.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I have to agree about the flavour . Complicated and strong. Can't be as bad as eating Durian though !

 

[maddydog]

Inspected 12 colonies today, all loving the sun. Patiently waiting for 3 virgins to get mated and lay - eggs in one but nothing in the others, early days yet as only around two weeks since emergence.
3 of the colonies were 3 frame nucs made up in late may and headed by newly purchased Cypriot super-queens. Debate the pros and cons of queen importation as you like but these colonies are very strong and their calmness is ridiculous. A real pleasure after some of my tetchy mongrels

 

[taurus]

I put in a board with porter escapes last night - having heard so many stories of how useless they are I looked this morning expecting to see the top super still full of bees. Not a one! So I've extracted my first super of honey.

Which went well until the kitchen table cloth slipped and fell into the strainer. This did not go down well.

Our rabbit seems to like the smell of honey.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I found Porters worked OK first time. After the bees waxed/propolised the "whiskers" I could never get them set properly and they never worked again

 

[B+.]

Its heavy work in the apiary now. I really must look into some mechanical lifting gear. http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/album.php?albumid=751&pictureid=3744

 

[philipm]

Yesterday checked the nasty hive that I requeened. Good to see her active and laying.Now I'm looking forward to doing my inspections with only one bee suit on and not dressed up as though I'm going into battle!

 

[Teemore]

I made up two Nucs for a friend last week and introduced queens into them for him using his preferred "hair curlers", one pink, one blue. In this instance, the colour is important. He had prepped these by plugging one end with fondant and a single layer of fine, wax proof paper (the stuff used on top of jam jars). When I added the queens, the other end was plugged with a small cork and the hair curlers were hung between frames in the nucs, ready for the queens to be released by the workers. He checked the two nucs on Saturday and whilst one queen was released OK, the other was still in the hair curler. He discovered that the fondant had been eaten but the queen could not get out of the hair curler ..... there was a small plastic ball in the middle of the hair curler preventing her exit. Apparently the presence of this is normal with this brand of blue hair curlers. The pink ones do not have balls. (Unintentional humour??) When he bought these hair curlers last year, he had noted that these blue balls were present and had wondered if they would make good stoppers..... clearly they do. Its a pity I didn't spot the ball when I put the queen into the blue hair curler and he didn't spot it when he had prepped the two hair curlers!
He released the queen and she promptly did a circuit around his head. I checked the nuc last night and unfortunatley the new queen wasn't home and the workers had drawn out some emergency QCs. I broke them down and united this nuc onto the other Q+ nuc. He will move them into a full hive this weekend.

 

[taurus]

Hurrah - just checked the nuc I made up and there are eggs so I have a new queen. Too cool to do anything else than a quick check so I need to wait for the weather to warm up before looking for her and trying to mark her.