What did you do in the Apiary today?

[youngyoungs]

Raced home from work for an inspection. No stores in the nuc, so fed it. Few stores in the ?Q- hive, so fed it (bees still buzzy), didn't see eggs in there, but did see some larvae, so perhaps a queen is there, and laying.....Last hive, I thought was doing well, found a load of queen cells, so something is going on there. Again few stores, so fed that one as well......blooming weather

 

[London-Scottish]

So I managed to capture my lost swarm this afternoon! Yippee
Was all quite stressful from having to come up with an excuse to leave work early
(before deciding the truth was sufficient!!)

It turns out they ad been laid up in a neighbours tree for the last week!!

Anyhow, I managed to eventually get the Bees to like the new hive and all settled now! Fingers crossed they'll like their new home! Will now leave them for at least a week if not two!

 

[oliver90owner]

Fed them? They almost certainly need it!

 

[Hivemaker.]

Fed them? They almost certainly need it!

Don't be stupid RAB,with this incrediblely fine weather,and a nectar flow that surpasses all others...

 

[London-Scottish]

Yes! Absolutely. 1:1 seems to have all calmed down now....

 

[Walrus]

Managed to inspect hives & introduce new queen to a nuc. My "good" hive is going OK with one super more or less full of mostly uncapped nectar. The queen seems to have stopped laying due to shite weather, but plenty of sealed/emerging brood in BB. Removed some sealed drone brood. Stuck varroa boards under hives.

Fed weaker hive & nucs. Only hope of any honey hanging on the one hive....I'm still hopeful.

 

[susbees]

Oh look it's pouring down again. Finished two combines between and during showers yesterday late afternoon, put a test frame in what looks like a failed mating (lost queen) - will check tomorrow and combine with a nuc, checked on another probably similar (same timescale) - will test frame tomorrow (rain stopped play).

Started Bailey comb change of a sort on a newly established queen in an ancient National with Commercial box over putting queen and a frame up and dummying with Kingspan due to the weather.

Checked another hive with new queen marked on 4th June and three supers on (didn't say filled with much more than bees!)...to find two sealed QC and three open charged cells. Hasty AS, queen still in situ, and made up a two frame Commercial nuc with a sealed cell too. Seriously wondering how many viable queens will make it through the winter if I can't get some grafts sorted soon and a reasonable mating window before the snow starts in October

 

[Skyhook]

Don't be stupid RAB,with this incrediblely fine weather,and a nectar flow that surpasses all others...

And to think a couple of weeks ago I was worried I hadn't got enough supers!

 

[witchcraft]

Found that only one of my lovely new BF queens has been accepted - Rats. But moved one of the frames of eggs she had laid into the other Q- hive as a test frame. (Thirty quid down the drain - or kicked out the front of the hive)

 

[madasafish]

It stopped raining and the sun came out so I fed bees and mended a mesh floor on a TBH. The original was made of a plastic type mesh which had split. Mended with a wire mesh patch. Bees totally unconcerned and just let me get on with it but those bees using the tear as an entrance were mighty confused...

As it is on grass, I ended up with various damp parts of my body covered in grass...camouflage against prying eyes?

 

[meidel]

Went through my main colony which was on double 14 x 12 - the upper box still had some capped brood, the lower was packed with nectar, so fashioned a reduced hole crownboard above 3 supers and another Qexcluder and bunged the store bound brood box on top - fingers crossed the bees transfer the stores down to the supers - inserted a test frame into the lower box as well before closing them al up.

 

[TOBY-3652]

marked a new queen. and seen eggs in a box that swarmed 4 weeks ago and got call for 1st wasp nest/// a big one [not] about as big as a apple

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Once the rain stopped inspected two home hives - plenty of bees but brooding has slowed a bit, both low on stores but hopefully they'll recover a bit with the next few (mostly) sunny days as there seems to be a flow on, bees foraging every moment they can in between showers.

 

[dickndoris]

Took some honey to the neighbours from my first harvest just to say hope my bees have not bothered you. My neighbour that is 30mtrs away said "I didn't know you kept bees? We had a swarm a couple of weeks ago in the garden and someone from the other side of York came to collect them. Gave us a jar of honey as a thank you" . I bet he did grrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[Shabro]

Collected two swarms last night, had to hastily finish a nuc box that I'd been working on.

 

[Queens59]

Ran - quickly (ish). Remember I had a swarm from a chimney - and she was the only one laying? Well, she was nice and mild etc...and with no other option used her for a test frame for another hive. This week? Arrgghh - she has turned into the hive from hell. Cliff tried to inspect yesterday and gave up when he couldn't see through his veil...sighs...

 

[Martin G]

SBI visit

Had a visit from the SBI all's fine with the bees. I got rapped for not keeping proper spacing. I'd had a couple of swarms and run out of frames, but catching up now!

Martin

 

[MuswellMetro]

Had to help another beekeeper at a Association apairy to combine a his queen right 5 frame swarm Nuc , find a drone layer and combine both hives

As he had no extra equipment, we fashioned a temp 14x12 brood box out of two empty super, and api eke, two crown boards ( one for roof and one for a floor with three wooden stake laid in a up to make the upstand of the floor)

we them move the old brood box off the stand and shook all the bees onto a sheet 20ft away , placing the old frames back in the temp 14x12 box

clean the old 14x12 box and place the 5v nuc frames and foundation and two store frames in that brood box ( on a site was adjacent to the old site)

then recombine with QE and newspaper with the temp nuc box above

when we checked the sheet we found two clumps of bees with a queen in each...one was a rough black scrub queen with a damaged leg and the other was a marked clipped italian.......and he never clips his queens, so either she was in the grass or crawled into his hive afters swarming from another association members hive

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Checked the Garn cottage hive, bees nice and calm and queen now laying a lovely pattern on eight frames and eyeing up number 9. Got as far as frame eight and the bees as i said were sooo laid back then suddenly they just roared up and i had two stingto one finger - looked up to see a dark cloud approaching and spots of rain! put the crown board back and came back a little while later to put a super on - laid back again.
Then had to mow the lawn in my beesuit for the first time ever, for some reason the home bees have taken exception to the mower - i think their flight path has changed with this new flow.
SWMBO's birthday today, staying downstairs on the computer until she falls asleep

 

[Moggs]

Bought 25kg sugar. Ordered poly nucs. Declined 2 swarms. Plans for new apiary (livestock fencing put up last weekend).