What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Cussword]

Just made my first batch of Hivemakers potion. I was a bit messy and it certainly smells, I fear I may be in trouble later

Oh yes, SWMBO went loopy about the smell last year. Still have plenty for this year so no problem.

 

[madasafish]

Weighed all hives - and an empty one to provide a datum - to establish feeding requirements.
Started feeding 2:1 syrup to lightest 2 hives.

Checked mite count after 3rd vape. all minimal with the exception of a poly hive which dropped 1-2 per day before treatment and is still dropping 40+/day after 17 days of OA. Notable a large number of younger mites - and mites in rows suggesting dying when brood emerge..

 

[coatesg]

Started feeding 2:1 in small and nuc on Sun. Largest colony will have supers removed tonight (need to see whether I can extract the part frames, or if I just nadir them).

New queen in biggest hive appears to be laying well with freshly laid eggs and two supercedure cells are nowhere to be seen - kinda hoping they went off the idea, but will need to subsequently find the marked queen to confirm...

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Did harvest, if it can be described as such. My estimate of 12x12oz jars was wildly optimistic - got 7.5 in the end (about 5.5lbs). Some of the frames had honey registering a water content of 23, but as I don't intend selling, would have had even less, and intend to give away and eat the remainder quickly, they got included anyway.

On the plus side it was all gathered, decapped, spun, filtered and jarred within a matter of 5 hours.

Gave a hungry colony some of the 2:1 mix I made yesterday.

 

[Etton]

i know it's probably the wrong thing to do, but I added a super today. Reason, I have been feeding syrup and BB looks full of syrup with little space for the queen to lay, we do after all still have ivy to go and possible still 4 weeks of gathering. Also found an open queen cell, which I destroyed, even though late could they still be thinking of swarming. Hive is an AS I did on 21st June.

 

[gregior]

Removed the last 8 supers today,bees in fantastic shape and really big balsam flow still going on,so much so a lot of the super frames were still full of nectar and not suitable for extraction,i have hired one of Manchester BKA's extractors so i had to remove all supers today.

Ended up pinching the fully sealed outer frames from the shallow boxes on my brood 1/2 colonies (a lot of these have never contained brood so are pretty easy to decap)and replacing them with the unsealed super frames.

Loads of pollen ,brood and stores in all the colonies so they're going into winter in fine shape,will do the first of 3 OA vapes tonight.

 

[Erichalfbee]

i know it's probably the wrong thing to do, but I added a super today. Reason, I have been feeding syrup and BB looks full of syrup with little space for the queen to lay, we do after all still have ivy to go and possible still 4 weeks of gathering. Also found an open queen cell, which I destroyed, even though late could they still be thinking of swarming. Hive is an AS I did on 21st June.

Think in what situations bees make queen cells apart from swarming ?
As for a syrup bound brood box I would simply take a frame away and put a frame of foundation in the middle of the brood nest. They will draw it in the middle of the warmth of the box and the queen will lay it up.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Balsam Bees

Why oh why does the Balsam tease us so?
My bees are cramming into the boxes all white dotted but there is not a lot of nectar being brought in. I should have known, there are lots of bees in the garden when there usually are few

 

[maddydog]

Checked two previously queenless colonies that had received Hivemaker queens under push in cages on Friday. Needless to say the bees had already released them and I saw them both happily laying.

 

[deanrpwaacs]

Had to check on the farm apiary and was pleased to find this fairly close by . Lots of bright yellow pollen coming in . All of the hives are very light so am starting to feed small amounts . Will monitor over the coming weeks .

 

[Etton]

Think in what situations bees make queen cells apart from swarming ?
As for a syrup bound brood box I would simply take a frame away and put a frame of foundation in the middle of the brood nest. They will draw it in the middle of the warmth of the box and the queen will lay it up.

I thought could be supercedure but is it not too late for a successful mating or could be late swarm, so destroyed the one QC

 

[Erichalfbee]

I thought could be supercedure but is it not too late for a successful mating or could be late swarm, so destroyed the one QC

Not too late for supersedure. Remember they still have the old queen. They will probably make another one or two if they are serious. You have just delayed things a little. Apart from freeing up that space I'd leave them alone till spring. Just heft or weigh after Christmas to keep an eye on stores

 

[nantmoel]

Just when you think swarming season is well past! My next door neighbour who is also a beekeeper told me last night that I have a swarm leave one of my hives on Monday afternoon. He also said they landed in a another neighbours garden a few doors down in a small bush, they then decided to up sticks yesterday at 17:00. Why he didn't tell me when he saw them I don't know. Well I check through the hives and to my absolute shock it was our 'Island' mated queen - grrrrrrrrr. On the up side we have raised about 25 queens from her so she has more than covered her £100 cost.

I was lucky enough to have a few of her daughters waiting to be moved out of mating hives, so I popped one of her off spring in there.

Who said swarming season has past!

 

[Plenty of honey]

Not too late for supersedure. Remember they still have the old queen. They will probably make another one or two if they are serious. You have just delayed things a little. Apart from freeing up that space I'd leave them alone till spring. Just heft or weigh after Christmas to keep an eye on stores

last year i harvested a queen from a mating nuc in late September, then left the colony. It requeened just fine and survived the winter. Even though lots of drones are being binned out, theres still some around, enough i would say!! with this warm weather theres no reason why not!

 

[Plenty of honey]

Had to check on the farm apiary and was pleased to find this fairly close by . Lots of bright yellow pollen coming in . All of the hives are very light so am starting to feed small amounts . Will monitor over the coming weeks .

Lucky you!! Nice flowers in September, jealous.com!!

 

[bpmurray]

Just when you think swarming season is well past! My next door neighbour who is also a beekeeper told me last night that I have a swarm leave one of my hives on Monday afternoon. He also said they landed in a another neighbours garden a few doors down in a small bush, they then decided to up sticks yesterday at 17:00. Why he didn't tell me when he saw them I don't know.

That has happened to me a couple of times too - I just don't understand why they don't say straight away!

 

[Angularity]

Why oh why does the Balsam tease us so?
My bees are cramming into the boxes all white dotted but there is not a lot of nectar being brought in. I should have known, there are lots of bees in the garden when there usually are few

No balsam round here. I saw lots in flower in Wales two weeks ago. After enthusing about it to my wife, I then had to explain how it was illegal for me to take seeds and plant them in the marsh over the road.

I was tempted, though...

Today, after a suggestion from the local BKA, I made and fitted an entrance block with he hole at one end. Supposedly it stops smaller colonies splitting in the hive over the winter. Worth trying, I thought.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Today, after a suggestion from the local BKA, I made and fitted an entrance block with he hole at one end. Supposedly it stops smaller colonies splitting in the hive over the winter. Worth trying, I thought.

That's where mine are for no other reason than that's the only place they can go as the other holes are in the middle. I wonder what the reason for that idea is? Interesting

 

[Tremyfro]

Last inspection of the colonies today. We were glad to see 2 new queens in our queenless hives...well queenless no more! Marked them. There were eggs and larvae in the nuc but we couldn't see any in the larger colony yet. We might have to do another check later this month to make sure they have brood. All the other 5 colonies were queen right and had brood. The larger colonies had good stores but we will have to feed the 2 nucs and the new colony. So I will be mixing syrup up later...ready to put on tomorrow. The wasps are now around the hives looking for a chance but the bees are holding them off.
I suspect wasps will be our biggest problem this afternoon as we intend draining the honey from the Flow frames. I have some piping so I'm hoping the honey will drain direct into the kilner jars and there will be no opportunity for either wasps or bees to get a share!

 

[Brigsy]

In the pictures I've seen there are never any interested insects! Hope it works out.