What did you do in the Apiary today?

[nantmoel]

Spent an evening driving around various apiaries introducing our new 'Superbee' queens to their new homes.

 

[For want of a better word]

Checked out the 20 + nucs with Native Cornish Black bees... all doing well with eggs and larvae and nice Black mated queens... beggars the question why some are not intelligent enough to do this ( Breed their own!!)

Nos da

 

[BeeJayBee]

Ah ha! The bees are mine at last!

I can almost see you rubbing your hands together with delight. Enjoy

 

[Goran]

Nature beauty.. While I was watching this curtain circling around, 2nd and 3 rd curtain from aside pour down on me.. Nicely played, and enjoyable to be part of it.. Few odd bees were in hurry to get back safe in the hives just a moment before..

 

[Etton]

I'm on holiday in the Lakes 20c + thinking of bringing my bees with me in future!!!!

 

[linoleum bonypart]

Very rare to be like that Etton ....I've seen some very damp hives in the lakes....wouldn't swap

 

[kazmcc]

I can almost see you rubbing your hands together with delight. Enjoy

Thank you!

I promise not to lose any swarms this year lol

 

[B+.]

I promise not to lose any swarms this year lol

Good Luck!

 

[B+.]

I have a steady procession of cells going through the incubator now so the latest group were moved to Apideas this morning (complete with their numbered disks attached). My intention is to II some to test against a group of A.m.c. I have coming from the island of Vlieland in about 3 weeks (Dutch line of carnica produced by BeeBreed) and my usual test group from I.B. Celle in Germany which should arrive in July).
I had a few days to fill in when the weather was bad at the start of the week so I made some "Klinworth" mini nucs (https://youtu.be/S8i-Rf6_caU?t=10m30s) for a bit of fun. I'll try them on a few open mated queens to see how well they work. This is just an experiment so I really don't mind what happens

 

[REDWOOD]

Checked my Ricky Wilson queen cage. Empty fingers crossed
Expected to AS my Buckie hive but all's well ........sort of. There are a few empty queen cups on the bottom bars of two frames in the first super. We'll see if bees move eggs then. Away for a few days so will look in again on Sunday

make sure you have plenty of spare supers with a RW queen, good all weather honey producers and gentle bees, well except for the one that stung me through the ventilation mesh in a traveling box.

 

[nantmoel]

Had a call from a member of the public regarding a swarm, put the swarm kit into the car, and off I go! Well when arrived at the address he showed me the bees (or what was left of them). He told me that they had been on the road since yesterday afternoon, there were 1000's of them just squashed on the road, there was a few 100 left, no queen. Looking at the dead ones squashed into the road it must have been a massive swarm. When I was there the other residents told me that they telephoned the council yesterday (four times) and they weren't interested in helping them. Such a shame when this happens. I used and old queen in a cage to attract the few hundred that were left and put them in a mating nuc I'd made up that was a little short of bees.
Sad day for both the bees and myself.

 

[snelgrove]

After days of freezing weather called at one of my Apiaries and with a brief spell of sunshine found a small cast from a nuc I made up over weekend. Left a queen cell but there was a virginpresent in the nuc. Managed to get them an put in a nuc box, had to saw the branch off a tree to get at them., they were about 20 feet up.

 

[buzzin]

??

 

[buzzin]

Checked out the 20 + nucs with Native Cornish Black bees... all doing well with eggs and larvae and nice Black mated queens... beggars the question why some are not intelligent enough to do this ( Breed their own!!)

Nos da

They are Cornish after all! lol

 

[Obee1]

Installed my new superbee queens that finally arrived and made up apidea for the virgins.
Had to a/s a colony in the farm apiary - again. This is a locally bred queen I was given by the bee inspector. Not impressed. She is a last year's queen and has tried swarming twice already.
Now my superbees are here I can get rid of my meanies. Interestingly both my mean hives have come from the local bee farmer who keeps some hives on the same farm as me. Even he is now starting to go down the buckfast route.

 

[kazmcc]

Good Luck!

Thank you! I'm bee sitting as of today. Might just stick them in front of the tele with a movie. Works for the kids

Had a call from a member of the public regarding a swarm, put the swarm kit into the car, and off I go! Well when arrived at the address he showed me the bees (or what was left of them). He told me that they had been on the road since yesterday afternoon, there were 1000's of them just squashed on the road, there was a few 100 left, no queen. Looking at the dead ones squashed into the road it must have been a massive swarm. When I was there the other residents told me that they telephoned the council yesterday (four times) and they weren't interested in helping them. Such a shame when this happens. I used and old queen in a cage to attract the few hundred that were left and put them in a mating nuc I'd made up that was a little short of bees.
Sad day for both the bees and myself.

Oh no! How sad! Poor things.

 

[Somerford]

Collected a fine prime swarm

 

[Hachi]

Clearer boards on and will be taking off 9 supers of OSR tomorrow for extracting.

Started the process of changing out national frames in a Comrcl BB.

Moved on a couple of swarms to club members.

 

[Mrs Shoot]

Collected a swarm on Wednesday.

The owner of the house was away, it was the neighbour who called us. She informed us that the swarm had been there for 3 days. They were 1st all over an air brick on the house, but then moved to the right hand side of the house, where they had stayed. They were tightly clustered in 2 cold groups. They were very high up and the patio was not in a safe way to put a ladder up, but even our tall ladder wouldn't have reached them.
We made a trip to the local plumbers merchants and purchased 2no x 3m lengths of waste pipe and some connectors. Attached these to the vac and hovered the bees. Had to use more suction than I would have liked, but got them in the vac. Bought them home in the vac and tipped them in to a nuc. A few casualties, but not to many considering.

Had a quick peek today through the plastic crown board and they are clustered in two groups in the nuc, one lot on the left hand side and one on the right hand side. Do you think these were two separate swarms? Should I just leave them how they are and let them sort themselves out?

 

[Eyeman]

Had a quick peek today through the plastic crown board and they are clustered in two groups in the nuc, one lot on the left hand side and one on the right hand side. Do you think these were two separate swarms? Should I just leave them how they are and let them sort themselves out?

Well done. Good bit of initiative and skill.
The swarms are casts headed by virgins. I would leave them together in the box and let them sort themselves out as you will end up with a bigger colony.