What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Holly Bees]

made some thymol mix for both syrup and varroa then sliced some oasis up with a bread knife washed some sardine tins out!

 

[TOBY-3652]

Killed a drone layer/ nice big queen too but i gave her long enough so uniting tonight

 

[nosmoking]

A friend of mine from near Yeovil came to see me today. We used to fly fighters together in the Royal Navy. He let it be known last year that he was a beekeeper with 3 colonies so I invited him to help me in one of the apiaries today.

We had a lovely time!!!!

warm sunny lunchtime, bees industrious but friendly....

We united a Q- nuc with a colony in single brood cedar and made it up to double brood poly national. We double brooded 2 other hives and fed syrup to get the wax going....I reckon just a few more weeks on the Balsam here and then it's show over.

Today reminded me why I took up this craft in the first place....Magical!!!

Sounds just like a day I would like to have. Nice post.

 

[Lorenz]

made some thymol mix for both syrup and varroa then sliced some oasis up with a bread knife washed some sardine tins out!

Don't you just put a sardine tin sized piece of oasis directly on top of the frames? No actual sardine tines, or perhaps that is what I have been doing wrong.

Today I went to shut up some bees ready to move to new site tomorrow. It was getting dark. Had no gloves or smoker and they stung me a lot. Serves me right.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

All three hives producing brood well, one I had been worried about generating enough to get through the winter but she's seems to have got going just in time, other two looking good. Still stores in all (I took the supers off a couple of weeks back). Applied 2nd week of Apilif Var. Replaced some empty frames with some with stores, which cause great excitement, and a few hundred difficult to shake off robbers following my wheelbarrow back down the field.

I have an off site nuc from a swarm which isn't doing so well. I had been hoping to unite it with the weakest of my colonies, but there has been no sign of laying for the past month and now drone layers have taken over, so I will just let it wind its way down to the inevitable end.

Poor summers harvest, only about 30 overly runny jars, but that was tempered by a having had a very successful OSR spring, the produce of which has won a local award.

 

[garlicpickle]

Anxiously checked hive after my old queen either swarmed or was superseded back at the end of July. I spotted a new queen 2 weeks ago but there was no brood so left her alone for 2 weeks. Very happy today to see brood in all stages Panic over - for now!

 

[drstitson]

"Don't you just put a sardine tin sized piece of oasis directly on top of the frames?"

even easier to just use folded up kitchen towel. less hassle and will fit under any format of crownboard/beespace.

 

[busybee53]

LES. I like this thread. It is useful when I want to know if other beeks are having to feed, getting honey, putting on thymol yet etc. etc. It is also nice to see the enthusiasm of other beeks and their pics. But if it's no use to you why not read other threads instead?

 

[busybee53]

Just checked Beebase to see if any results are in from when the Bee Inspector came as part of the european survey. Not much in the way of results yet but found the inspector described one of my hives as having fierce bees. Oops. They did get in her hair though.

 

[oldsalthouse]

Started varroa treatment today on all the hives, using Thymovar this year

 

[Sadders]

No time for bees today. At the Paralympic games.

 

[Chris Luck]

No time for bees today. At the Paralympic games.

Lucky you, I'm envious.

Getting the odd glance at the games on the TV when I take a rest from extracting, but I'd rather be there, it's great, better than the Olympics.

Chris

 

[simonwig]

Me too Sadders, just on my way back. Saw Richard Whitehead get Gold in WR time

 

[dickndoris]

Fed a starving nuc. DAMM!! That was after work last night so out there at 12.45am. How did I not notice in time?!?!?!??! It was fine 3 days ago. I am guessing it's been robbed.....Sigh.... So fed all my nucs. Will start and feed the hives -supers that need it tomorrow on the run to Autumn Varroa treatment. HM's home brew this year. With HM's additive in the feed too. And the Doris loves the smell of thymol Good as I brewed up in the kitchen

 

[SunnyRaes]

Argh - normally inspect in the afternoon and assumed the weather was going to be nice all weekend. Just looked and noticed its supposed to rain tomorrow, so we're going to have to go inspect now! Grr! Hate having to rush these things, as its only then everything goes wrong!

 

[user 3509]

Erected woodpecker guards around hives.

 

[user 6228]

first full inspection of all 4 hives for a while.
A fortnight ago we thought we had one go Q- cos we had haphazard drone laying and no worker... and another was only weakly laying...
this week the two weak hive are back on lay and laying strongly... what did we do? we warmed them up by changing the hive configuration...
The two strong hives are really go for it... but still seem a lot fewer bees on the frames than we saw in the wooden hive last year

 

[Queens59]

7 happy hives - 2 drone laying Queens...1 being robbed out by hive number 3...ooops

All well stored - no need to feed, varroa drops v low (below 5 per week) apart from 1 hive @ 100.

Oh well...and 100lb of honey jarred that I can't find an outlet for...hey ho!

 

[Sadders]

Had day passes for Excel with my youngest. Saw four different sports. Had a great day without a bee in sight. Will have to get my bee fix tomorrow.u

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Had a day off from Paralympic guard duties so took a train to London for a mooch around (bit daring I know, country boy in the city and all that) and a look at the family tombs at Westminster - I walked from London bridge via St Paul's it was nice to see all the pollinator friendly plants around St Paul's and Parliament square but not nice to be told there was a 15 quid charge to get into St Paul's and 16 for Westminster so in 2000 years here we are full circle - I bet the pharisees and moey lenders are chuckling away to themselves