What did you do in the Apiary today?

[madasafish]

Fed syrup to a hive (4 lang frames of bees) which was from a swarm last week. In a box with undrawn foundation and with really horrible weather for the past week - and the short term forecast no better - they will be needing food.

(Pollen coming in, no or very little nectar).

 

[Erichalfbee]

Reduced supers from three to two in prep for a unite tomorrow. Just spun off the first of the honey and watched the one man Welsh team score against England. Time to come home lads

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Ninety minutes of watching 22 millionaires kicking a bag of wind around and pretending to be hurt - Just went out and did a few inspections in the rain instead.

 

[snelgrove]

Ninety minutes of watching 22 millionaires kicking a bag of wind around and pretending to be hurt - Just went out and did a few inspections in the rain instead.

Nothing to do with the result by any chance

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Nothing to do with the result by any chance

didn't know that until I turned the radio on on the way back to get an update of the Jo Cox story.
I only caught the end of the last match because I didn't realise there was extra time when I came in from the garden.

 

[snelgrove]

didn't know that until I turned the radio on on the way back to get an update of the Jo Cox story.
I only caught the end of the last match because I didn't realise there was extra time when I came in from the garden.

Chill only joking

 

[Erichalfbee]

Ninety minutes of watching 22 millionaires kicking a bag of wind around and pretending to be hurt - Just went out and did a few inspections in the rain instead.

Been extracting in the room next door. It's a bit difficult to not look in now and again with Stan shouting, "Rubbish! Get up off the floor , you tart! "

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

That's the difference between Rugby and Association football - one is ninety minutes of pretending you're hurt - the other is eighty minutes pretending you're not

 

[protheroe]

Fed swarms,nucs and some hives low on stores.quick check in supers to see what needed feed and they were all extremely aggressive.i had lots of stings around one ankle and thought they were going down my welly which isn't unusual but when I got home I saw that the back of my welly had torn apart.

 

[Nige.Coll]

marked some 2016 queens stopped when it rained.

 

[malx]

Took off two supers and have spun out 35 pounds of honey so far. Exceeded last year's total already so feeling pleased.
Weather was far too bad to open up the hives. Got absolutely soaked retrieving the supers at lunchtime.
Started scouting for a new site to house the bees as the **** nearby is done.

 

[huw]

Well done. I think you've defined both sports in a nutshell

 

[DerbyBee]

Inspected the hives today and wasn't surprised to see that they have consumed quiet abit of the honey in this bad weather. Constant rain in the Midlands. Nice to see the queens have been busy and quiet a lot of sealed brood and bias.

The swarm I caught few weeks ago is doing well. Two full frames of sealed brood and some other frames that are partially sealed but good amount of eggs and bias. Finally spotted the queen and marked her. However, they are a feisty bunch of girls and got a sting to the finger, but every time I went to pick up a frame they were looking to sting me. What shall I do with them? The queen looks to be doing a good job but don't want bad tempered bees. Or shall I blame it on the bad weather we have been having?

 

[AndyTh]

As it's a swarm, you won't need to do the weekly checks as they're unlikely to swarm again this season, so just leave the broodnest alone, now you know queen is laying well. That'll save a few stings. Blame defensive behaviour (often thought of as aggressive behaviour!!) on the weather; next month they'll collect lots of honey for you and overwinter, you can decide whether to requeen with a less feisty one.

 

[Somerford]

Checked on 21 colonies in between a shower or two and as storms threatened.

Popped a newly hatched Virgin into a nuc that has done little apart from fail to raise a queen, in a cage just in case. Helped another into the nuc she was hatching from and cut out 2 later stage QCs.

So that's 6 nucs mated and laying, 1 waiting to be mated, 1 hoping to be accepted and mated, and 2 small swarms building up well.

The full colonies are still pulling in the nectar, some more than others.

On another note I've secured 2 more out apiaries - one at a garden centre in a field of Christmas trees and another in a wild field with 400 fruit trees in it. Agreed to be able to site up to 10 in both locations.

 

[JWF]

Collected a swarm from a about 5ft up in an old apple tree in the garden, same place as a swarm sat a few weeks ago.

I have now totally run out of equipment, they had to get hived onto super frames as I've got no brood frames. Last brood box, last floor, last roof, crown board I've been cleaned out! Brood frames on order, hope they get here before I have a huge wildcomb mess to deal with. Well, I can hope, can't I!?!

 

[drex]

As it's a swarm, you won't need to do the weekly checks as they're unlikely to swarm again this season, so just leave the broodnest alone, now you know queen is laying well. That'll save a few stings. Blame defensive behaviour (often thought of as aggressive behaviour!!) on the weather; next month they'll collect lots of honey for you and overwinter, you can decide whether to requeen with a less feisty one.

Collected a small swarm about a month ago. Only covered two frames in the nuc. Now on 4, in a 6 frame box and yesterday there were charged queen cells.

 

[Beeline]

The swarm I caught few weeks ago is doing well. Two full frames of sealed brood and some other frames that are partially sealed but good amount of eggs and bias. Finally spotted the queen and marked her. However, they are a feisty bunch of girls and got a sting to the finger, but every time I went to pick up a frame they were looking to sting me. What shall I do with them? The queen looks to be doing a good job but don't want bad tempered bees. Or shall I blame it on the bad weather we have been having?

I have the same problem with a recent swarm - horrible bees. I'm going to remove all the brood they have laid up in the nuc and give them to a homegrown nuc I've got building up (Yes they will hatch and probably be a bunch of thugs but by end August they'll be gone).

Squish the nasty queen and give them two frames of eggs from my nicest colony to raise some nice QCs and then split my surrogate nasties to hopefully get two or more new mated queens from the right stock.

Hopefully making something good out of bad as I'm not in the game of pain/gain.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

As it's a swarm, you won't need to do the weekly checks as they're unlikely to swarm again this season,

 

[B+.]

Collected the latest batch of queen cells and transferred them to the incubator (bottom shelf)