What did you do in the Apiary today?

[B+.]

Another successful incubator hatch, put number 33 on her as it fell out of the card holding the numbers. I dropped her in some diluted honey and dropped her into a mating hive where the QC didn't emerge.

Many congratulations!... Marking gets easier the more practice you can get.
They should lick her clean in no time

I spent the afternoon at Willie Robsons place in the Borders (Chain Bridge Honey Farm). My bees are a long way south of here

 

[Cussword]

I had my very best cut comb in my first year
30lbs off one colony in the spring. Supers are still on partly capped partly eaten

You can go off folk

 

[Erichalfbee]

You can go off folk

Nah! That was years ago and never ever managed to repeat it.
I've been looking at Wally Shaw's dehumidifier and wondering where I might put it.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Popped into a bad tempered colony that had no sign of a queen two weeks ago. Now a load of brood, but still bad tempered. Hopefully the next generation will cheer up a bit.

 

[Bearhouse]

No beekeeping here as yet, still a wannabee..... but DH informs me that a swarm flew through our garden next to where he is building his new greenhouse! Apparently this was over an hour ago and he didn't think to see which direction they took afterwards unfortunately.

 

[Goran]

I had a friend beek from abroad at the apiary.. Since I just came from hols, grass in front of hives ( not so big, but..).. Maybe in photoshop could make pics decent..
What a heck, when celebrities from witches become beauty queens I should be able to trim some grass from pics with photoshop..

 

[Cussword]

Not at my apiary, but soon will be. Was called out to a good sized swarm (Well, nuc sized) this morning, hopefully I'll move them tonight or tomorrow. Family member happy for them to stay in her garden in the nuc, as long as needed.

Happy days .


.

 

[nantmoel]

The hives we have here in my garden are bringing heather, the mountain behind me is purple with it, the smell is so strong its amazing.

Also checked on a few virgin queens we reared from our Superbee breeder and one has started laying! Yipeeeeeeeeee

 

[gregior]

Watched the bees coming and going.Working very hard on the balsam -lots of very heavy landings!

 

[Erichalfbee]

2 supersedure cells in one of the LASI boxes...................sigh.

Nothing there today and queen present and laying.....

 

[bpmurray]

Nothing there today and queen present and laying.....

Did a sugar-roll varroa count on all 5 hives, and treated all with Apiguard. I also checked my evil hive, recently requeened, and they were fine until I shook a frame into a bowl for the sugar test. It was a warm day, wearing a T-shirt, so I got 3 stings in my arm. The queen was wandering around, although I didn't see any eggs.

The very last hive I tested was fine until I realised that one bee in the bowl had a white spot on her back - I nearly had a heart attack. I had checked the frame carefully, just to be sure she wasn't on it, but obviously I missed her. I put her back into the hive carefully, praying that she wasn't harmed. She looked fine, but ...

P.S. The counts were 29 (!), 2, 4, 7 & 6. All good apart from that insane first one.

 

[coatesg]

Checked on hive that swarmed twice when I went away on holiday. Despite doing AS the previous week, removing queen and frames to a nuc for safekeeping, and subsequently thinning out QCs to one the day we left (I thought...), they apparently swarmed two and seven days later and pretty much did for my honey harvest (got a couple of frames only to pull).

Anyhow, test frame from last week has been ignored, and even better that I appear to have fresh eggs in there too. Must have missed cells (though not sure where....) as they managed to throw 2 swarms and still be Q+ but at least they've a chance of sorting themselves out nicely before the autumn, and will add feeder to give them chance to stock up.

V grumpy bees!

 

[chrisb]

thank goodness it was not an alcohol wash

 

[Obee1]

i shook a hive out and had a cloud of bees round me which I brushed off as best as I could. Was just thinking how sweet tempered they were, got into the beemobile and got stung on the butt. It appears I had sat on 10 bees. Was rather lucky to get only one sting.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Did a sugar-roll varroa count ....................... I realised that one bee in the bowl had a white spot on her back - I nearly had a heart attack.

Heart stopping.
I ALWAYS find the queen first and shake another frame

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Absolute chaos in the "mating apiary" and I need an LQ for the "production apiary". The Q- side of a v strong nuc I had to split, on the original site for various reasons, has torn down its QCs and pollen is going in (but no Q or eggs I could see). I put the Q in the entrance of the Q+ side and closed it but she went completely missing so a theory that fits is some sort of Houdini act, but no way; wishful thinking.

Other QCs AWOL, one nuc robbed out etc. Horrible.

 

[Plenty of honey]

Nearly finished making up Nucs, lots of brood in hives but i get the feeling queens are finally slowing down after the third week without anything around. There will be a good or as good as we can expect, brood break in a couple of weeks. time to hit that Varroa while we can. I also put up mouse guards and / or entrance reducers on all hives i take a nuc from. I am sure it helps the colony with less robbers trying to help themselves. "Trying to let them be" is having a nightmare by the sound of things.
Harvest done, very poor this year. It started off exceptionally well, then the weather went bad just at the wrong time. Still, lots of honey in the brood nest. Ive only had to feed a handful of colonies whilst making swarms.
Nucs guzzling Syrop, but if they are going to make the winter, it must be so!!
No wasps of hornets, unbelievable, what a weird year!!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Checked on hive that swarmed twice when I went away on holiday. Despite doing AS the previous week, removing queen and frames to a nuc for safekeeping, and subsequently thinning out QCs to one the day we left (I thought...), they apparently swarmed two and seven days later and pretty much did for my honey harvest (got a couple of frames only to pull).

Anyhow, test frame from last week has been ignored, and even better that I appear to have fresh eggs in there too. Must have missed cells (though not sure where....) as they managed to throw 2 swarms and still be Q+ but at least they've a chance of sorting themselves out nicely before the autumn, and will add feeder to give them chance to stock up.

V grumpy bees!

Obviously they had the material to build plenty of EQCs after you closed up, but what did you expect after removing the queen and leaving them to their own devices? A colony that strong would have a field day

 

[coatesg]

Obviously they had the material to build plenty of EQCs after you closed up, but what did you expect after removing the queen and leaving them to their own devices? A colony that strong would have a field day

I'd removed the marked queen 7 days prior to thinning out the QCs - at this point, I'd assume there wouldn't be anything young enough to make any EQC... (hence assumption I had missed them). Bad timing for me in general. Ho hum.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I'd removed the marked queen 7 days prior to thinning out the QCs - at this point, I'd assume there wouldn't be anything young enough to make any EQC... (hence assumption I had missed them). Bad timing for me in general. Ho hum.

I've noticed that in full boxes eggs laid near the bottom of frames can lead to "impossible" timings due to their remaining viable despite being untended and relatively cool. I have only seen QCs that were three days "impossibly young" but I bet the limit is higher, given the ability of eggs to be sent by post etc.

ADD. Even without that effect, 7 days (=4 d.o. larva) could perhaps just (3 days, easily) give a viable, albeit not ideal, Q for the colony to then go on to supersede. Better to invest the extra 2 days and even then be wary of the effect I mention.