What did you do in the Apiary today?

[coatesg]

Mowed the grass in the orchard/apiary this evening, with plan of splitting hive tomorrow morning (been too cold to even think about it...). Didn't get that far until youngest asked my wife - "Mummy, is that a new hive there?". And so I have now caught my first swarm

Assume this was the hive I planned on splitting, bees have decided it is warm enough and they were off! Wasn't the easiest to get them all, as the fence is double sided with a 4" gap in the middle. Managed to get as lot of them in a box, deposited in a spare hive, and managed to get the queen as most of the rest walked happily in with me holding the box on the top of the fence. A small cluster i couldn't get in as they had clustered down in the fence by which stage it was a bit too cold to get them to move up. Covered them over with a cloth in hope they may get through to tomorrow and find their way home.

Tomorrow, will inspect and rearrange them with split board as I had planned.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

That's a milestone in a beekeepers life

 

[coatesg]

Made up a full super with foundation, reorganised swarm and parent hive into a vertical split with snelgrove between to bleed the rest of the flyers down. Thinned QCs in parent down to one - will reinspect in a few days to thin out any new ones (looks like cold weather congestion triggered swarm - was still space in the parent to lay.... Eggs and young larvae present).

 

[madasafish]

Chilly 11C but sunny at times. Took advantage of the sun to:

Remove one frame containing larvae from best hive, punch 18 cells#, attach to bars and place in starter colony (top box over a cloake board with slide closed so Q- since yesterday) . The top box was then fed (frame feeder) and pollen patties..What seems like lot of bees in it...

Despite the cold bees were surprisingly docile

# taken to garage and using magnification plus light in the dark..

 

[enrico]

Went into my strongest hive to check for queen cells. All ok
Then checked my second strongest. Found one queen at each end of the brood box. Not sure where the second one came from. Hadn't seen any queen cells. Small enough to be a virgin. Left them together for the moment. They were definitely different queens. Happens sometimes, hope the strongest one comes out on top!
E

 

[Erichalfbee]

Looked through them all as it was 10 days since I left three of the boxes on 8/9/10 frames of brood.....
Weather not the best, windy and not warm but I was getting twitchy and needs must.

One colony nearly ate us alive. There is an early QC in this one so will go back in three days to see what they have done with it. Please please let it be a supesedure cell then I can leave them alone for a month.
Others all OK, supers filling nicely.

 

[Millet]

Just a quick look over the fence today and they must be a flow on with the amount of activity coming and going from the hive even though the mercury is barely hitting 60 C, the wild cherry and blackthorn is in full flower so hopefully they are targeting that.
The wind chill was a bit nippy to open them up but i am sure on my next visit i will have a butchers for any swarming activity.

 

[Swarm]

Went into my strongest hive to check for queen cells. All ok
Then checked my second strongest. Found one queen at each end of the brood box. Not sure where the second one came from. Hadn't seen any queen cells. Small enough to be a virgin. Left them together for the moment. They were definitely different queens. Happens sometimes, hope the strongest one comes out on top!
E

I was shown a photo of a comb and asked how many queens I could see. The first two were easy enough to find but the other two were more difficult.

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

Just a really lovely time going through my two home hives with kazmcc.

One of them is so quiet, it's hard to believe. They have a super queen, which is slow to build up early in the season - but then takes off like a rocket!

The other is a huge colony - too big for its own good. So last weekend we split it to take a nuc with the queen to Manchester Cathedral apiary; when inspected yesterday, they were well established. Meanwhile, the remaining bees have thrown up some good emergency queen cells. Strangely, they are better behaved without their old queen.

But it was a real pleasure to spend time with them today.
And with kazmcc, of course!

Dusty

 

[rdmw]

Mowed the grass in the orchard/apiary this evening, with plan of splitting hive tomorrow morning (been too cold to even think about it...). Didn't get that far until youngest asked my wife - "Mummy, is that a new hive there?". And so I have now caught my first swarm



Assume this was the hive I planned on splitting, bees have decided it is warm enough and they were off! Wasn't the easiest to get them all, as the fence is double sided with a 4" gap in the middle. Managed to get as lot of them in a box, deposited in a spare hive, and managed to get the queen as most of the rest walked happily in with me holding the box on the top of the fence. A small cluster i couldn't get in as they had clustered down in the fence by which stage it was a bit too cold to get them to move up. Covered them over with a cloth in hope they may get through to tomorrow and find their way home.



Tomorrow, will inspect and rearrange them with split board as I had planned.

Nice work!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Went to the Pembrokeshire BKA auction yesterday - nineteen full colonies for sale in total, prices weren't low but not madly high either - as for the equipment on offer, disappointing on the whole, prices being kept down on the decent stuff due to lack of interest (Newish, very clean WBC hive complete with 3 supers went for £90.00) people bidding daft prices for tat.

Found this little item amongst a load junk emptied from a shed.

 

[Goodwood]

Ha ha Mr Jenkins.
Twas mine!
Sent as a replacement to the original which arrived damaged but which I subsequently repaired and used.
Flow kindly told me to keep it, so I bunged it in the auction for a laugh with some new langstroth brood frames.
It certainly caused a lot of head scratching and questions " what the hell is that thing you have you shoved in to the auction" etc

My original is actually going great guns this year and is filling nicely with a orange golden honey.
Maggie and Dan, the regional bee inspectors inspected my apiaries after the auction bees the day before, and, whilst unimpressed with the lack of space in the nine frame langstroth...(.mine are on double brood for that reason ) were impressed with the flow hive and took plenty of pics as it was their first encounter.

I bought it in the first round of funding with Flow as I subscribe to Indiegogo....before things went mental. My "investment" was out of curiosity more than anything.
Whilst it seems to be working well this year ( last year the nuc I placed in it decided to swarm within a fortnight and knackered the season for the test run), It remains to me more of an experiment rather than a serious prospect for UK bee keeping.
I shall update if I ever get a significant flow of honey from it later in the seaso.
And....if you are passing and fancy a look/laugh, pop in.

 

[Goodwood]

Ps
Got £36 for it

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Ps
Got £36 for it ��

I know - it was nice chatting to you too. Good to put a name to a face

 

[SaraR]

Quick inspection today before the rain hit, to find some drone brood and (what I hope is) a play cup on the face of a frame. Looks like my girls are all grown up now Colony is definitely growing well now but still some way to go before they fill up the brood box. Won't be long though. Weather looking better for tomorrow so will take the chance to get some stuff done that I didn't manage today.

 

[Goodwood]

Ah I thought it was you Emyr. Likewise...
also Ta for advice re sacbrood etc.
Invitation still stands

apart from the bees, which I missed, there was little to note this year. I have a feeling that if there is an auction next year, there will be strict rules on cleanliness of submitted items.
Sadly the few stalwarts who make the auction happen had little help or respect from some vendors who dumped stuff off in a shameful state before scarpering.
One guy left the dirtiest pile of frames I have seen and just plonked his business card on top for Babs and Dai T. Pretty disrespectful and may be one factor in the viability ofnext years auction.

 

[Brigsy]

Went to do the second stage of my 'Wally" today. The queen + side is supposed to have torn down queen cells, not make ten more..... Took her out and popped her in the Q- side after knocking down cells on both sides. Newly Q- side will be left alone to raise a new queen, (still undecided on trimming down to one cell prior to emergence)

 

[drex]

I did two second stage manipulations. First one went like a charm. Knocked down QC's in Q- colony. Found queen in parent colony on second frame I looked at and moved her over - all QC's had been taken down by the bees.
On to the second colony. Knocked down queen cells, went to the other colony. No QC's .
Eggs and larvae, but could not find supposedly marked queen. Went through the boxes ( double brood) three times and still could not find her. Closed up. So I have left the AS side hopelessly queen less. Usually I have no problem finding queens. Do not like to sieve them. I will looke again tomorrow and if I still cannot find her will leave as is and unite the AS with one of my over wintered nucs. Reading through Wallys advice on this procedure, it should work out alright, ( swarm urge should have been satisfied), but does anyone see a flaw in my reasoning?

 

[JWF]

Went through my colonies. One which has a newly mated queen, is now on seven frames of BIAS so she looks like a good layer - I'll be closing them up shortly as they're going to someone from my BKA in the morning.

The other 5 colonies are fine with a few uncharged queen cups present. Supers are filling nicely and I suspect that next week I'll need to do one or two splits.

 

[Tim.S]

I had a good look through all the hives, a few cups but nothing else so far. One hive is on 4 deeps already and going ballistic. Trouble is they are a very unfriendly lot so a new queen looks in order. What a contrast to look into the hives headed by hivemakers queens - very friendly and no smoke needed. Need to save up my pennies and get some more!