What did you do in the Apiary today?

[nantmoel]

Checked on a few mating hives, a few mated but the majority are not. The bees in all the hives are like ghosts coming back, HB in full flow here, still plenty of heather about but the weather is crap.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

doesn't seem to bother mine - out in force in the rain all morning, still going like a bomb

 

[nantmoel]

doesn't seem to bother mine - out in force in the rain all morning, till going like a bomb

They are out in force but where I could really smell the heather in the apiary a few days ago in the full sun the aroma is now missing. Fair play they are working their socks off, I have even had to add a few supers in the past couple of days.

 

[Cussword]

To use the vernacular,, I so hate you guys......

 

[Tremyfro]

Lovely sunshine again today...the bees working furiously.....we will need to check for space tomorrow if this continues....mind you they may be fooling me.....they've done that before....and they have been scoffing it as it came in! I will also be checking Flow frames to see if any are capped.

 

[madasafish]

Mine are busy on balsam - all supers removed last week.
Prior experience here is that balsam is OK for filling brood box, not enough for supers. And September is when it starts getting cold at nights. We have heavy morning dews now - when it is not raining!

 

[Tim.S]

I started to remove the supers today but the rain caught me out and the girls were not happy - 3 stings through the suit.
I have one hive which is persistently trying to swarm. I knocked the cells down a week ago and today there were more cells in spite of me giving her 5 drawn combs last week which she has now filled. Strikes me as a bit late for an a/s, but whatever this ones days are numbered. Seems a shame as she is trying so hard!

 

[snelgrove]

First visit to the heather site, what a joy supers more or less full on the ten colonies taken, second super added to a few. Bumper crop for the north pennines. Rarely do bees fill more than one super here.

 

[Millet]

Haven't you got a battery in your vehicle?

Rather than faff about I will just do it next week.

 

[B+.]

Got wet!
It was pouring down but I did manage to go through all the hives at one apiary.
They are all daughters of 6-1-1037-2015 that will be used for drone rearing next year. As there is nothing much available for them at the moment, I have set them all up in double Langstroth brood boxes with feeders ready to start feeding them for winter.

 

[JWF]

Took 5 supers off 3 hives this morning, nearly popping a gonad carrying them down the garden - not all at once obviously.

Once I've got rid of the last few remaining bees in the outhouse I will spin off the honey. Hopefully there's enough room to store it as I have another two supers to take off a colony which was a swarm I collected at the end of June. It's been a good year here I think.

 

[snelgrove]

It's been a good year here I think.

------
Good heather year other than that average to poor here in North east. Plagued by easterly winds temperaturein June didn't get above ten degrees for two weeks, rest of country was baking.

 

[Jimmys Mum]

I have one of my hives which is insisting on bearding all over the front of the brood box. It looks like every last bee is hanging out there! They have been there for 3 days now after I put the Apilfe Var on. Today I swept them all up in several dustpanfulls (is that even a word?) and chucked them back inside. So far they are still more or less staying inside, good job as its been raining most of the day.

Huge drops of varroa from all hives in just 3 days, hundreds!

 

[snelgrove]

I have one of my hives which is insisting on bearding all over the front of the brood box. It looks like every last bee is hanging out there! They have been there for 3 days now after I put the Apilfe Var on. Today I swept them all up in several dustpanfulls (is that even a word?) and chucked them back inside. So far they are still more or less staying inside, good job as its been raining most of the day.

Huge drops of varroa from all hives in just 3 days, hundreds!

I wouldn't worry if your using only one bar per hive. The fact varroa aredropping is proof the treatment is working. Bees clustered outside is a sideaffect of treatment. You are only using one bar per hive, half a pack??

 

[Brigsy]

Regarding what I thought was robbing bees due to the dead bees outside one hive and dead and dying bees being spat out of the entrance at a rate of knots sometimes being dragged.

There were also a lot of walking bees around the apiary.

I tried the wet sheet over the hives overnight and awoke to an apocalyptic scene outside the hive that was not spewing dead bees.

I went into the other hive that I thought was being robbed and found the bottom screen about an inch deep in dead and dying bees.

Now I am wondering if they have been poisoned.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Blimey...what carnage.
Poisoned bees have their tongues out. Are you seeing that?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Blimey...what carnage.
Poisoned bees have their tongues out. Are you seeing that?

There were also a lot of walking bees around the apiary.

CBPV? - sometimes the symptoms are sudden and cataclysmic

 

[beeno]

Hi Brigsy,
Are all three of your hives affected?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

CBPV? - sometimes the symptoms are sudden and cataclysmic

It's on page 233 of Clive's book if you're wondering Beeno, althought that won't much use to anyone............................... try Ted Hooper page 197

 

[Michael Palmer]

It's been a good year here I think.

Here too I think. Took 15,000 lbs from 4 yards of 24 in the last 3 days. 60 drums filled so far, the hot room is full, and 7 more yards to go.

"I got blisters on my fingers"