What did you do in the Apiary today?

[vermillion]

I added a super to my split and did some weeding. Also peeked into my swarm hive from 10 days ago and will be needing to get them bigger accommodations soon, too.

Glorious sun today!

 

[Cazza]

Up early to beat the bees (just.) Put up a bee fence with shade netting and hazel poles coppiced from the garden. Looks good if I say so myself. Meanwhile HWMBO slept on......
Cazza

 

[Poly Hive]

Checked my starter box and a nice take of grafts.

PH

 

[Silly Bee]

Todays meeting showed one hive with a couple of QC's. a lot of bees, time running short so did a Dave Cushman AS

Two cells one almost sealed on one frame.
Two with brood mostly sealed with some stores.
Two frames with stores.

A fair number of flying bees and house bees.

Moved to another apiary. Now waiting to see how it pans out.

 

[tonybloke]

discovered a hive had swarmed, and queen cells on bottom of both supers.
also sealed queen cells in the hive.
created a nuc with a queen cell ( sealed), 3 frames of bees, 2 frames of stores and left the parent hive with one open queen cell.
will inspect again in five days to knock down any emergency cells formed

other hive, still no queen cells, queen seen, 11 frames of brood, 2 supers being worked on.

 

[Swarm]

Added supers!!!! All colonies looking fit and well and very happy in the sunshine. Amazing to think I fed one last week - Cutting wild comb out today. Noticed some strange signs of life tucked up in the roof overhang. No idea what it was at first, larval, so I scraped it off. Checking a bait hive, I found the same on the top corner of the BB and it was easier to make out. Almost like cells made from bright yellow pollen (a bit like a larger version of the expanded mesh floor pattern) with a larva in each. A solitary bee, no idea which, she was coming back and for checking what I was doing. I felt awful about destroying the others.
Out apiaries done, it was time to get out of the sweat suit and partake in some cool cider.

 

[Queens59]

1. Swarm housed 2 weeks ago has filled a 6 frame nuc. We gave them a full size BB and super = watch this space!

2. Bait hive - Some activity 10-20 bees all day...got to 10.35 pm and checked the box///why are 10 bees spending the night?????

 

[meidel]

Bait hive - Some activity 10-20 bees all day...got to 10.35 pm and checked the box///why are 10 bees spending the night?????

could they be the swarm scouts who returned to the swarm's resting position and found everyone had left for some other place and thought, oh well, might as well spend the night here?

 

[YorkshireBees]

After another long exhausting day in the heat in a bee suit I face another long day. Checked 14 of my 16 hives yesterday, 7 supers clearing for extraction, several more to do next week(end), 2 hives need demaree'ing and a further 2 could do with test frames as it appears that there is no Queen present!

 

[Luminos]

Added supers!!!! All colonies looking fit and well and very happy in the sunshine. Amazing to think I fed one last week - Cutting wild comb out today. Noticed some strange signs of life tucked up in the roof overhang. No idea what it was at first, larval, so I scraped it off. Checking a bait hive, I found the same on the top corner of the BB and it was easier to make out. Almost like cells made from bright yellow pollen (a bit like a larger version of the expanded mesh floor pattern) with a larva in each. A solitary bee, no idea which, she was coming back and for checking what I was doing. I felt awful about destroying the others.
Out apiaries done, it was time to get out of the sweat suit and partake in some cool cider.

I too found two similar cells last inspection, under the overhang of the roof. The bee was there (not a honeybee) and I left them alone.

 

[madasafish]

Yesterday:
Went to our local association apiary and helped show some (absolute) beginners round a hive : so nice that they ended up removing frames , finding queen and seeing eggs ..(something I fail to do on a regular basis - due to age:-(

Today, inspected all my colonies, moved one from one TBH into another to provide room for the colony at the other end to expand.

All taking nectar in and capping honey at a rate of knots: no QCs seen (yet)..

Lit smoker but it sat around redundantly as it was 24C and the bees were in great mood - very laid back. No stings - no hassle, - was it cannabis or just the weather?

 

[jackbee]

just sat and watched established colony bringing in pollen - love that for some reason

and just watching a very new collected swarm, just enjoying the fact they're still there lol

 

[VEG]

yesterday I marked a queen that has just started laying bees all nice and calm in that hive, another hive I did an AS on.

 

[Chris58]

Back from holiday, thank you MJBee for bee-sitting. Took off super (no point having it on after recent weather). Replaced a frame in the brood box, put on feeder with 1/1 syrup. Seems weird, over 20 degrees and there's little forage! Mind you after recent weather storms, all acacia flowers dropped from trees before they'd got to it!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Checked all the hives bar one.
Collected swarm has a white marked queen and eggs.
Buckfast colony is half way through its second super and they are backfilling the brood nest grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr so took a couple of frames out and replaced with foundation.
Colony Asd a month ago is now on a 14 x 12 and a half (or should I say super) grrrrrrrrrrrrr didn't want that either.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Ran a virgin queen into a stale queen hive from an AS on the 14th April after searching endlessly for her to no avail

hoping they would accept the virgin as a superecedure queen ( a vain hope i know ~) and they promptly balled her.

So its back to square one and I will have to sieve the bees through a queen excluder to find the stale queen then requeen

 

[meidel]

MM - shall i come and see if i can spot her - my old shake them on to a sheet trick works a treat! I've spotted countless virgins in my short time as a beek!

today I did nothing in the apiary - we went down to the seaside - at first there was a little fog and then it was screen factor 30 conditions for the rest of the day

 

[REDWOOD]

Carried out an AS on one hive, Buckfast Cercropia Q can't fill enough supers, made more frames for her tomorrow

 

[tonybloke]

moved one from one TBH into another to provide room for the colony at the other end to expand.

don't the bees just go back where they came from when they fly? or did you move them 3 miles?

 

[madasafish]

don't the bees just go back where they came from when they fly? or did you move them 3 miles?

The flying bees remained milling around: as lost.but this am there are very few left - 20 or so... But the remaining bees appear to have remained with the colony this am...

Nurse bees have not moved. Most of this moving stuff 3 miles is - in my view - like most beekeeping rules - folklore...