What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Chris Luck]

Ericalfbee,

You need to get that chic back in the nest or to a raptor rehab centre with experienced staff asap. If you hand feed it you will start to imprint it, also if you wait untill saturday the parents are unlikely to accept it. Dehydration is also a vey real danger for a young bird of prey. Please contact somewhere like the welsh hawking centre and see if they can help you. It is also illegal to have a native bird of prey in your possesion without it being closed rung and having a CITIES article 10 certificate.

I agree in general although dehydration shouldn't be an issue if the provided food is dipped in water. Red Kites are probably one of the easier raptors to raise being carrion eaters. I wouldn't consider waiting until Saturday.

I'm always wary of quoting the law at people here in France, it often puts their backs up although I'm sure that wouldn't happen here.

Chris

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Meanwhile, back in the apiary with a "p" not a "v" I have heard from Payne's that this years' nucs (Red Queen!) are nearly ready, so I have been in the apiary thinking carefully and finally about hive orientation.

I've built a small apiary in the NE corner of my S-facing garden. I can either face S, along the edge of the garden (which has high deciduous tree barriers and so partial shade), or N, straight into a fence about 4 ft away. The latter means that the guards will not be bothered by anything in the garden; facing S means worrying a bit about screens etc. I'm thinking N but any strong objections? Not worth a new thread, I thought...

 

[Swarm]

I'd go for south, some will say the bees do not like north facing.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Ericalfbee,

You need to get that chic back in the nest or to a raptor rehab centre with experienced staff asap. If you hand feed it you will start to imprint it, also if you wait untill saturday the parents are unlikely to accept it. Dehydration is also a vey real danger for a young bird of prey. Please contact somewhere like the welsh hawking centre and see if they can help you. It is also illegal to have a native bird of prey in your possesion without it being closed rung and having a CITIES article 10 certificate.

Well, I am under the instructions of Tony Cross from the Welsh Kite Trust

 

[galloway fine foods]

WOW huge thread! took a couple of days to get through it but fascinating stuff and loads of info!! thanks to all i have learnt alot of little things that would be hard to learn any other way

 

[blackcavebees]

Robbed supers of young bees to fill 2 mating hives (amm queen cells going in thurs night hopefully). Was surprised the after just 2 days of rain they had cleared out all the honey that was there last week, my bad luck that population expanded dramatically just before it started to rain

Anyway forecast is good for a few days so increased foragers available. Onwards and upwards ...

 

[itma]

... I've built a small apiary in the NE corner of my S-facing garden. I can either face S, along the edge of the garden (which has high deciduous tree barriers and so partial shade), or N, straight into a fence about 4 ft away. The latter means that the guards will not be bothered by anything in the garden; facing S means worrying a bit about screens etc. I'm thinking N but any strong objections? Not worth a new thread, I thought...

I'd go for south, some will say the bees do not like north facing.

Traditionally, hives faced towards the Sun.
But traditionally, hives had solid floors.
With a mesh floor and allowing light under the hives, orientation direction is less important.

But you could turn the hive (in small stages, every few days) and try it both ways.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Traditionally, hives faced towards the Sun.
But traditionally, hives had solid floors.
With a mesh floor and allowing light under the hives, orientation direction is less important.

Yes, I'd thought that too; my main focus has been on getting spring sun under the hive without baking it in summer. The apiary is based around a bay laurel bush for shade, currently arranged SW of the hive, right next to it (and awaiting a hornet trap...).

But you could turn the hive (in small stages, every few days) and try it both ways.

D'oh! Thank you! I hadn't worked that out. That's really helpful so I'll relax and report back.

Thanks everyone

 

[nonstandard]

Mrs B and I managed to extract 5 supers of honey yesterday with a borrowed 4 frame tangential extractor, we only have another 8 to do. The upside of it all is that I now have permission to buy a 9 frame radial this year and a motor for it next year unless I can find a good S/H one.

 

[witchcraft]

Found one of my AS colonies seems to have gone over the a drone laying Q and also one of my hives of gentle bees has gone queenless and turned really, really evil. It was too mad (with a nice, if scary, pear drops smell!) to try to get a test frame in there. I'll gird up my loins and try again.

Just found out I have passed my Basic and the bees are still a bl00dy mystery to me :-(

 

[Cie]

A standard day at the apiary, did nothing more than watch them coming and going

 

[Little John]

Donned full armour for an inspection of the 'hive from hell' - only this time, as an experiment, I didn't use any smoke. In fact, I didn't even fire up the smoker.

I used absolutely nothing - well, except a few squirts of fine water mist to get their heads down during box replacement - and, ok, they were still well miffed and half a dozen followed afterwards for over 300ft (is this a record ?) - but there were far fewer bees in the air during my protracted looksee. Maybe a couple of hundred, rather than a cloud of thousands which had previously been the case.

They'll be re-hived (into a Russian hive) by the weekend - hopefully that'll pacify 'em a bit.

LJ

 

[drstitson]

little john - have you tried using cover cloths? keeps the open bit limited to one frame wide.

 

[Goran]

Lime is over, even there were not much of use of it.. Preparing for some last splits, deciding which queens must go. Soon queen excluders will go out, changing configuration for winter preparations ( brood up).. At least we have more rain than last year, so the meadow can contribute to filling the stores ( white clover,goldenrod, sweet clover, thyme, etc..).

 

[Ben90]

Put a super on, maybe I shouldn't write off a honey harvest afterall.

 

[Little John]

little john - have you tried using cover cloths? keeps the open bit limited to one frame wide.

Yep - I've been using two pieces of lightweight sailcloth stapled to dowels, wrapping one, unwrapping the other - keeping the open slot to a minimum (as per Horizontal Top Bar principles). And - when having more than one box open, I also cover the open boxes with hessian sacks. But nothing seems to work, smoke certainly annoys the hell out of them.

The inspection today started off ok, got the lid off without any of them getting excited; split the super from the brood, likewise - then a few foragers returned, and rather than enter the hive they started circling (around me). These were joined by more, and the cloud started to build, as per usual. What has happened in past inspections, is that at roughly 10 minutes into the inspection much of the colony comes barrelling out of the front entrance, as if responding to some kind of signal.

Now this didn't happen today, and the only difference I'm aware of is the absence of smoke - which doesn't make any sense at all, as smoke is supposed to mask chemical signals, so today should have been more chaotic, and not less.

I'm sure most people would simply re-queen, and I may have to do just that - but I have a sneaking admiration for how gutsy these little girls are, and I'll accomodate them for as long as possible. Would be nice to find a solution to the extreme 'following', though.

LJ

 

[richardbees]

L John, have you tried some drops of "vanilla essence" in the mister?

 

[BeeJayBee]

Just found out I have passed my Basic and the bees are still a bl00dy mystery to me :-(

Congratulations!

Bees will always be a mystery!

The inspection today started off ok, got the lid off without any of them getting excited; split the super from the brood, likewise - then a few foragers returned, and rather than enter the hive they started circling (around me). These were joined by more, and the cloud started to build, as per usual. What has happened in past inspections, is that at roughly 10 minutes into the inspection much of the colony comes barrelling out of the front entrance, as if responding to some kind of signal.

I'm sure most people would simply re-queen, and I may have to do just that - but I have a sneaking admiration for how gutsy these little girls are, and I'll accomodate them for as long as possible. Would be nice to find a solution to the extreme 'following', though.

Are you using a different detergent to wash your suit? Mine, for example, don't like 'Bold' so I only use washing soda now.

 

[VEG]

looked at shiny things

 

[Alabamaeee]

Leather gloves perhaps with pheremone remaining from previous stings?