What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Millet]

Went round the apiaries preparing for next week's extraction, inspected a few of the hives, one, was a blue queen first inspection in spring, but by the second there was no sign of her and in her stead was a lovely unmarked queen which i marked yellow, today, saw the queen and it looks as if all the paint had worn of, went to re-mark her and could just see blue paint!! The next frame, the yellow queen happily laying away

Was the old girl clipped

 

[colinc]

Can you come and search for one of mine please
Stan and I spent two hours looking for one this afternoon

I had a Queen last year that I found on a frame against the side wall. First frame out. Got to the other end of the box and she was on the last frame. Marked too so not a 2 Queen hive. Some of them are stealthy ninjas.


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[Goran]

Lime started but affected with storm.. Today bees like.. bees from hell.. Some due to lime, some due to storm, some.. who knows all " why"..
Nevertheless, my gloves were covered with stings.. Seems if they can manage to gather for themselves.. it will be jackpot.. so, so far seems no more extraction for me ( also fondants are waiting in store for after lime " flow".. Some stiff schedule with hazels.. and then all in qrearing, I will requeen again vast majority.. Found where from to order oxalic and glicerine for oxalic summer treatment, I decided to give it a go..
Forgot, all area smells on lime flower.. At start it was enjoyable, now a bit annoying.

 

[Erichalfbee]

After trying all the usual tricks, my last trick is stacking all the frames on the roof of another hive, the sunlight keeps a queen in one place, between the frames. Any flying bees go back to the hive. I have found I only need to go through the frames once after checking the brood box first.

Interesting. Do you just take the frames out of the hive and plonk them on another roof? Just in a stack or in another box?

 

[Anduril]

Interesting. Do you just take the frames out of the hive and plonk them on another roof? Just in a stack or in another box?

The frames are stacked horizontally one on top of the other with top bars 180° to each other on a roof of another hive.

 

[Erichalfbee]

The frames are stacked horizontally one on top of the other with top bars 180° to each other on a roof of another hive.

Thank you.
Round two tomorrow

 

[pargyle]

Thank you.
Round two tomorrow

Me too ... good luck !

 

[Erichalfbee]

Good luck too
Stan and I sat in the garden this morning planning/ arguing how to get the number of our boxes down. I have made a decision
We still have two colonies too many.

 

[Tonyatcwfarm]

8 colonies coming out of winter
Started extracting last Monday
235lbs with no help from osr
Strained and jarred Wednesday only 25 jars left to sell
Pharmacy in village decided to sell at my cost price to create footfall and they advertised local honey benefits for pollen allergies on their Facebook page,78 jars gone in 3 days
I know weather has a lot to do with it but I'm also giving some credit to changing to poly hives last July

 

[madasafish]

25 Nicot cells (from my 2015 Blue Buckfast queen) placed in cell raisers today. Last batch a total dud due to rogue queen in cell raiser

If they all emerge, I will be incapable of housing them...but I have a cunning plan...

 

[colinc]

25 Nicot cells (from my 2015 Blue Buckfast queen) placed in cell raisers today. Last batch a total dud due to rogue queen in cell raiser



If they all emerge, I will be incapable of housing them...but I have a cunning plan...

Don’t mention the B word......

You could sell any surplus for a Fast Buck.

I should look for an out apiary as I would raise queens from my 2015 Queen but haven’t the space at home. Surprised she is still laying strong I thought they would replace her last winter.


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[jenkinsbrynmair]

Pleasant morning at the association apiary – watched my niece do her first solo inspection, she hasn’t really been ‘instructed’ on anything, just stood and watched me, and been shown brood, eggs etc whilst been talked through inspections (and she’s read a bit) she obviously observes and takes note – hive tool held and used perfectly, never put down, handling of lugs and tilting of frames, spot on! Must be in the blood .
Spent the afternoon putting the rest of the clearer boards on the out apiaries.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thank you.
Round two tomorrow

Round two
Two days after the last failure a different sort of failure
Six or seven uncapped swarm cells maybe three days off capping, no eggs, no queen. What’s the betting she had already gone on Saturday.
Strangely my plan, should we not find her, was to let her b****r off take the QCs down and proceed with uniting the colony with another as planned. Oh well.
Perhaps I should take up another hobby.
I shall make some elderflower champagne from flowers foraged on the way back.

 

[colinc]

Round two
Two days after the last failure a different sort of failure
Six or seven uncapped swarm cells maybe three days off capping, no eggs, no queen. What’s the betting she had already gone on Saturday.
Strangely my plan, should we not find her, was to let her b****r off take the QCs down and proceed with uniting the colony with another as planned. Oh well.
Perhaps I should take up another hobby.
I shall make some elderflower champagne from flowers foraged on the way back.

All good plans.....

Ah well, beekeeping definitely teaches you to be flexible with your planning.


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[Millet]

I went to the apiary today with the intention of making a Nuc with a single Queen cell from my best colony but that plan went out the window when i got there.
I was greeted with this clump of bees firmly stuck to the wall around 10yrds away from the suspect hive, i only had the one nuc with me so my plans obviously had to be changed, i gently brushed the majority of the bees into the top of the nuc and then placed the lid on with a small gap at one end, it was not long before they all started marching in, that will be the fourth nuc filled this year and i am starting to run out of equipment again..

 

[beeno]

Nine months after my September unite, I finally got to say hello to my Ligurian queen, who has been elusive. There was a capped QC in a very prominent position in an existing hole in the middle of one frame. Seven day inspection schedule, so that teaches me not to inspect in the shade, I can only assume I thought it was empty. Thinking it is supersedure, I nuced the QC and hope they make another one. Lots of eggs in the hive, room to lay and two full supers.

 

[alldigging]

saw two queens on one frame.

 

[Stedic]

Finally got ahead of, or at least caught up with, my colonies.

Having all tried to swarm in the same week in early May they have been on assorted different swarm control methods. Reason for different methods - lack of kit that fateful day!

Happily the 2 old queens are back to laying beautifully, the one who was a bit dodgy has created a full 14x12 of sealed brood, quite impressive. The three new queens are all laying, 2 have capped worker brood. The third had no capped brood but is in the weakest hive so I'm just leaving her to it for a little longer. Suddenly I'm a 5 hive owner!

Hopefully between them they will be able to bring in a modest summer harvest. Having to draw all the supers seems to be slowing everything down a fair bit so I have a feeling I may have to wait for next year to get any significant amounts of honey.

 

[Helen]

Planned on marking up a new queen. Caught her in a one-handed queen catcher, took her away from the hive a few meters to get away from a number of her bees, marked her. Then another bee came in, dived into the cage and started attacking her. Popped her very quickly back into her colony and her daughters took care of the marauder. Fingers crossed she wasn't damaged. Didn't expect an attack like that.

 

[Wingy]

Checked in on hive 1 where I lost a swarm a few weeks ago, New Q is there and plenty of eggs all doing well
Nuc that I made up from hive 1 just before they buggered off anyway doing really well BIAS and eggs in every available space. Placed into full hive with 6 frames of foundation and placed a recently extracted super above over QX to give them a boost in helping drawing that foundation. Looks like this Q will be as good as her mother
2nd Nuc that failed to raise a Q was dwindling so gave them a frame from the good nuc with BIAS and eggs, should give them a chance to raise a new Q