What did you do in the Apiary today?

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Inspected my hives today.

The split which had the original queen was doing fine, but a bit slow in drawing out new frames.

The original hive into which I released a virgin queen three weeks ago has absolutely no brood or eggs present, and i ws unable to find the queen.

I have transferred a frame of brood including eggs and very young brood from the Q+ hive. I will check again in a week to see if they have made any queen cells
 
Checked my freebie Welsh mongrel queen in her nuc. She's been laying triple eggs in bottom of cells. Now her brood is being capped it is all drone. She is the tiniest queen ever. Smaller than a worker bee. Going to have to pop her in my queenlure pot.
Checked my nuc with daughter of awol foreign bucky. No eggs yet so assume not mated
Didn't check the 'nuc' with newly emerged daughter of 36b - result of a supercedure attempt by my mean hive. She only emerged a few days ago and is in a 1 frame nuc. Wasn't expecting cell to survive so didn't want to waste bees on making a proper nuc.
My waspbane has caught 3 wasps.
 
The wasps are bad here...constantly annoying the bees....luckily my wasp traps are doing the job. 2 wasps were stupid enough to enter my kitchen...they were clearly suicidal....
 
went to one of my sites today that has lots of ivy around it and noticed that there are some flowers coming out on it. Was quite shocked very early.
 
The wasps are bad here...constantly annoying the bees....luckily my wasp traps are doing the job. 2 wasps were stupid enough to enter my kitchen...they were clearly suicidal....

Whilst on holiday i lost a hive to wasps, it was one that was a swarm i picked up at the beginning of july and was just starting to build up. Had a look at all the other hive entrances on the site and none seem to have any wasp problems.
 
Whilst on holiday i lost a hive to wasps, it was one that was a swarm i picked up at the beginning of july and was just starting to build up. Had a look at all the other hive entrances on the site and none seem to have any wasp problems.

Me too...I lost a small nuc to the wasps whilst away on hols. There were only a couple of hundred bees left...all very dispirited and starving as the wasps had taken everything. I added them to another hive.
Not many wasps are getting to leave as they get caught in the traps.
Luckily, the rest were OK...just got to keep them going now.
 
Peeked into breeders, 45 nice qcells so far. Now comes to me hammering the lack of mnucs, due to various reasons still cannot afford. Hopefully after selling honey to go into that direction. I was planning to sell a lot of colonies this spring and to invest some in mnucs and play with queens, cunning plan and bad realisation.. Instead of that I was pilling honey barrels and again on as the same colony numbers like last year.. Maybe next year more luck..
 
went to one of my sites today that has lots of ivy around it and noticed that there are some flowers coming out on it. Was quite shocked very early.

Are you sure it's Ivy ? ... I'm only a few miles along the coast and there's nothing but leaves on the Ivy in my garden ? I would not, normally, expect flowers to be formed for another month down here ... earliest flowerings are usually mid September and were much later last year - took forever to bloom.

There are no sightings recorded on Ivywatch yet ? You could be the first !

http://www.naturescalendar.org.uk/map/current.htm?rsid=122&reid=3&ry=2012&rs=A
 
Sweating and sweating a lot till midday.. Now go for 2nd round of.. sweating.. Temps in a shade 36-37celsius.. I can't describe my happiness.. August seems will be the most such warm.
 
Know how you feel Goran, same here hardly any bees about not much for them to work, roll on the rains,
 
A beautiful day here in Manchester. Did hive 2 first today, never seen the bees so quiet! We treated with MAQS last week, and the brood pattern shows she has had a break for a few days. Very little larvae, but we found eggs so she is back in lay. Good news :)

Hive 1, the rowdy bunch were very quiet too. We really wanted to see her today, as they showed a bit of interest in her last week when we marked her. No problems though, there she was, trundling around the frame. Saw some of the nicest capped brood I've ever seen in there today. Took the super with the hole in off to repair.

All is well :)

Oh, and Dusty has asked me if I will assist him with a rowdy bunch on the cathedral. I'm looking forward to seeing the set up there. Rowdy bees? Pah! No problem :eek::leaving:
 
Are you sure it's Ivy ? ... I'm only a few miles along the coast and there's nothing but leaves on the Ivy in my garden ? I would not, normally, expect flowers to be formed for another month down here ... earliest flowerings are usually mid September and were much later last year - took forever to bloom.

There are no sightings recorded on Ivywatch yet ? You could be the first !

http://www.naturescalendar.org.uk/map/current.htm?rsid=122&reid=3&ry=2012&rs=A

I will have a second look on Monday and take a pic while im up there.
 
checked and topped up fondont on apideas, blue marked queens spotted, eggs seen, capped brood and watched new bees emerge.

also received my Apivar today courtesy via a Vet! so lots of choice over treatments this year so might give MAQS a miss this year, and treat Apivar this year and next year.
 
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Moved one of my newly mated queens up to carreg last night so popped up this afternoon to transfer the nuc into a full hive - she was already on five frames of brood!
Quick five minute job I thought - drove up, turned around in front of the hives then went a few yards back down the lane, lit the smoker and walked back carefully dodging the large cowpat in the middle of the track......................err, hang on, I've got the whole forty acres, no livestock (did i mention my eyes are playing up?) it was a small swarm just sat there on the gravel!! not much kit to hand, but lucily a few spare brood frames to put into the nuc just vacated by the new colony, I didn't have time to faff around so I scooped up a few bees, dumped them in the nuc and closed up leaving the nuc on the track (have to remember it's there when I go back Wednesday with another nuc. When I last looked, they seemed to be moving towards the nuc.
at the home apiary, had a quick scoot through most of the hives - another two successful matings and a colony that had swarmed with no sign of the new queen mating had dwindled out leaving me with an empty hive. I think that I'll be scrapping this bloodline - lovely gentle bees which build up steadily but not too fast in spring but very quick to swarm for no good reason (three gone this year with plenty of space left, queen going strong and building up stores promisingly) more than a touch of carnolian in the original queen if I recall, but however many are left in the spring will face requeening I'm afraid
 

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wasn't able to look today due to the weather. didn't go up to the bees.
 
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