What did you do in the Apiary today?

[victor meldrew]

Tackled the bucketful of wild comb built in the fondant eke on three hives !
I managed to render some beautiful buttercup yellow wax and no sludge! This wild comb has been built in about 4/5weeks so filtering not required !
Sautéed brood any one?
VM


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Made this with some of the wax gained cleaning up the wild comb
Beautiful colour ?

View attachment 8410

VM


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[VEG]

Nice clean wax there VM

 

[Stiffy]

Lots of black bees checking one of my bait hives today. I had my nephew with me and when asked why they are not mine said 'yours are bees in striped pyjamas uncle' !
Will have to get some queens reared soon so that if and when they move in I can re-queen in future.
S

 

[Chris Luck]

Why would you want to re queen "black bees"?

Chris

 

[Erichalfbee]

Beautiful colour ?



VM


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Wonderful
Dandelions?

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Opened the doors to the new queens I bought in, caged and introduced into my hives. I've had enough of these miserable/aggressive buck fast bees...

 

[ultreen1]

Inspected the Abby bees and got invited to dinner by the nuns...I declined the offer!
The bees are doing well. A swarm I collected last year! Black bees and a black queen. Laying well no drone brood yet!
View attachment 8417

 

[Stiffy]

Mainly because the blacks I have had and some I still have at out apiaries are stinging gits.
S

 

[Outlander]

I didn’t do much but the bees were kind enough to build comb on the little mating nuc frames a dropped into there hives. Wow they filled them out in under two days.

 

[rolande]

Opened the doors to the new queens I bought in, caged and introduced into my hives. I've had enough of these miserable/aggressive buck fast bees...

what are the new ones?

 

[Stiffy]

Opened the doors to the new queens I bought in, caged and introduced into my hives. I've had enough of these miserable/aggressive buck fast bees...

Hope they work well for you, qits strange how different people have differing opinions. I wouldn't want anything other than my Buckfast, can only suggest its down to the breeders.
S

 

[victor meldrew]

Wonderful
Dandelions?

My thoughts, though I also thought the dandelions a little too late ,maybe the comb was built later and therefore quicker than I first supposed!
VM


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[itma]

Today I did an a/s.
And my back.

 

[Greatbigchicken]

I spoke too soon, whent to check them today and guess what.... All gone One of these day's I might actually succeed with this swarming lark

Today I was in the kitchen with my sister hearing all about her recent trip to Nepal, she looks outthe window and says "oooh, there's a lot of bees out there".

Not "a lot of bees" and blooming great cloud of them. We went out and watched my bees swarm over 2 gardens and settle in the third. I popped round, luckily I've known the residents forever so they were fine.

Swarm had landed in a fir tree at about shoulder hight. Shook them into my skep, inverted it onto a sheet and waited. My sister points out they have moved to a post so I scooped up a couple of handfulls and what do you know there was the queen, I popped her into the skep, left it a couple of hours, gathered them up and popped them in a hive. Another couple of hours, they were all inside so I packed up the hive and moved it out to my out apiary to replace the one I lost over winter.

All went exactly to plan, no drama and no stings. There must be something I've forgotten.

 

[ashleybee]

A frame of open brood from the original colony would prob have kept them or an excluder under the brood box (for a couple of days only)
Ab

 

[herefordshirehoney]

Woke up in middle of night to buzzing in the bedroom. Found a queen wasp had gotten in via window and eventually settled behind wardrobe. After some quick googling sprayed some hairspray near as I could get and turned off lights. Within a few minutes she came out of hiding to check the smell I dazed her more and you can guess the rest. Baby and wife moved out of the room for an hour not exactly what you want at 4am!

 

[wmfd]

Moved three hives onto a field of oil seed rape last evening. All very uneventful apart from falling down an old badger hole three times over in the dark.

Back aching a bit this morning. Anyone have a hive barrow or some other way of saving their back? (I must be getting old)

Now hoping for continued warm weather so they can get busy!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Baby and wife moved out of the room for an hour not exactly what you want at 4am!

You have a baby in your bedroom?
Must be new.
Congratulations

 

[Erichalfbee]

I spoke too soon, whent to check them today and guess what.... All gone One of these day's I might actually succeed with this swarming lark

A piece of plastic QE over the entrance works for me.

 

[DaveJNeal]

strange one over night

checked the colony yesterday, all seemed okay, am running a 14x12 brood with just one super on at the moment.

then out at around 22:00 last night to shut the hens in, low droning from the colony and the hive entrance was packed with bees - not bearding all over the front of the bb, just in the entrance. was probably about 10-15c at the time, so not massively hot. checked this morning, a fair number of dead bees out the front this morning. BB is set up hot ( ie, frames set parallel to the hive entrance ) but I'm surprised if it was that hot with a fully loaded BB and I didn't think it was a sign of imm. swarming.

any ideas gurus ?

thanks in advance

D