What did you do in the Apiary today?

[For want of a better word]

Had a little bonfire to celebrate a swarm carrying EFB taking up unwelcome residence in an empty hive!

Yeghes da

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

Same as yesterday - battened down the hatches! Not many bees flying again today.
Weather is forecasted to improve from Monday.

 

[Niv]

I checked on one of my apiaries today and found that the the new nuc that I placed a mated queen in has accepted her as I can see her happily wondering around.

The nuc I moved into a hive a week ago is building brace comb above the crown board so I have filled the brood box with foundation so they have a whole brood box to work with now. Will keep a close eye but think I will need to make up another brood box to use as a super as I have ran out of supers and my order from maisemore has (understandably) not turned up yet.

Nice problem to have really so not complaining!

 

[drex]

Niv- it makes sense to close the hole in your crownboard. Plenty of posts on here about it

 

[youngyoungs]

Extracted some supers, so got to bed far too late. Returned wet supers to hives for cleaning. Swarm from one hive which had taken up residence in the entrance of the hive it came from despite being transferred into another box on two separate occasions was back. I clip my queens, so am thinking she'd fallen out of the hive and crawled back to the entrance. Excitingly this time there were bees still remaining in the new box, so maybe we got the queen this time.
Got home and checked my wax bucket and amongst the stray bees in there was another queen....... Where did she come from?????

 

[Horseradish]

Last week I pushed my queen out of the Super and excluded her in the bottom box that was largely empty. Was expecting large frames of brood but got nothing. She refuses to use the brood box. Took out the excluder and let her have her way.

 

[enrico]

Last week I pushed my queen out of the Super and excluded her in the bottom box that was largely empty. Was expecting large frames of brood but got nothing. She refuses to use the brood box. Took out the excluder and let her have her way.

Swap the boxes round. Put the super under the brood box until she moves up into it
E

 

[E&MBees]

Probably did my best inspection to date today. Felt in control and calm. Bees were super calm, only needed a smidge of smoke. Wearing nitrile gloves over marigolds made a huge difference dexterity, which I think the bees appreciated. Perhaps I will get there, after all the set backs I was doubtful.

Haven’t yet seen the queen of this new colony, but given there is BIAS, not essential. Would like to catch a glimpse of her at some point though. What did surprise me, was that they have filled an entire brood frame, both sides with pollen. My previous bees put it around the brood, these bees haven’t.

Supers are filling nicely which is good.

 

[enrico]

Probably did my best inspection to date today. Felt in control and calm. Bees were super calm, only needed a smidge of smoke. Wearing nitrile gloves over marigolds made a huge difference dexterity, which I think the bees appreciated. Perhaps I will get there, after all the set backs I was doubtful.

Haven’t yet seen the queen of this new colony, but given there is BIAS, not essential. Would like to catch a glimpse of her at some point though. What did surprise me, was that they have filled an entire brood frame, both sides with pollen. My previous bees put it around the brood, these bees haven’t.

Supers are filling nicely which is good.

Woopeeeeeeee! Well done. The only way is UP

 

[Camey]

Interesting observation

I was out checking my hives today, weather much better than forecast, blue sky, slight infrequent showers, no sign of the forcasted 50 mph winds. Bees still pretty quiet but the ones who are venturing out are bringing back some cream white or bright orange pollen. So getting to my " Interesting Observation" while watching them flying to and fro I noticed a couple of occasions a single honey bee closely following the erratic flight path of a swift, reminiscent of WW2 fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain films, I'm pretty sure they were actively chasing away the swifts, not something I've seen or read about but pretty cool to see.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I was out checking my hives today, weather much better than forecast, blue sky, slight infrequent showers, no sign of the forcasted 50 mph winds. Bees still pretty quiet but the ones who are venturing out are bringing back some cream white or bright orange pollen. So getting to my " Interesting Observation" while watching them flying to and fro I noticed a couple of occasions a single honey bee closely following the erratic flight path of a swift, reminiscent of WW2 fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain films, I'm pretty sure they were actively chasing away the swifts, not something I've seen or read about but pretty cool to see.

You must have bees with afterburner in your area

 

[Erichalfbee]

Probably did my best inspection to date today. Felt in control and calm. Bees were super calm, only needed a smidge of smoke. Wearing nitrile gloves over marigolds made a huge difference dexterity, which I think the bees appreciated. Perhaps I will get there, after all the set backs I was doubtful.

Haven’t yet seen the queen of this new colony, but given there is BIAS, not essential. Would like to catch a glimpse of her at some point though. What did surprise me, was that they have filled an entire brood frame, both sides with pollen. My previous bees put it around the brood, these bees haven’t.

Supers are filling nicely which is good.

So pleased after all the rubbish that’s come your way. It’s been a challenging year. I have been cultivating a Zen attitude to honey this year.

 

[G4WIL]

So pleased after all the rubbish that’s come your way. It’s been a challenging year. I have been cultivating a Zen attitude to honey this year.

It’s hit and miss . No osr near me . I had two swarms April and May !
They each have 3 heavy supers, another hive has four .
The balsam is only just coming on stream as the hot dry spell delayed germination .
The daily downpours have seen a dramatic change on that score .
Every cloud has a silver lining .


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Tim.S]

So desperate for frames that I had to resort to extracting four boxes in the home apiary so I have some to fill holes that I have in various hives before the bees get doing silly things.
The honey was about 50% capped so I wasn't expecting marvels with the water content but it just edged below 18% so all's well.

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

So pleased after all the rubbish that’s come your way. It’s been a challenging year. I have been cultivating a Zen attitude to honey this year.

Same here Dani, there’s been too many interruptions to the foraging for my lot, some weather related, one swarming related (my poor swarm prevention), one queen failure / supercedure related. I have two colonies “getting up to speed” and one I think, still without a laying queen.
Inspections on Tuesday when the wind is forecasted to abate, will be really interesting.

 

[pargyle]

Probably did my best inspection to date today. Felt in control and calm. Bees were super calm, only needed a smidge of smoke. Wearing nitrile gloves over marigolds made a huge difference dexterity, which I think the bees appreciated. Perhaps I will get there, after all the set backs I was doubtful.

Haven’t yet seen the queen of this new colony, but given there is BIAS, not essential. Would like to catch a glimpse of her at some point though. What did surprise me, was that they have filled an entire brood frame, both sides with pollen. My previous bees put it around the brood, these bees haven’t.

Supers are filling nicely which is good.

It's a really good feeling when you feel it's gone well ... sadly, the bees are just lulling you into a false sense of achievement while they plot their next move to confound you ! Well done .. it takes a lot to stick af it after what you started off with.

 

[Swarm]

What a day in high winds, going through colonies checking for laying queens, splitting away nucs and introducing queens.
The bees were amazing, making things much easier. On average, four or five supers and very heavy, bees were utterly piling in with bramble pollen. One new queen, emerged on June 15th has filled the brood box and they are busy filling the super, central frames capped so another one due next visit. A couple showing beautiful laying patterns and one looks like it's failed.
Over all, very happy, maybe we might get a summer as well.

 

[Beekeeper Brownie]

Checked on all hives, things were going steadily. Some hives were active and others were having a stay at home day.

Put a nuc into a full size hive and also marked and clipped the queen for that colony. This was a nuc had two poly brood boxes as I wanted to try this and see the out come. I'm pretty happy as they had drawn out all the brood frames but getting them all to fit into a brood box took a little bit of shuffling, the first box was drawn out very evenly and the second one was not quite as neat. I've put a drawn supper on to them some I might still get something useful from them before the season closes.

I was glad to see my first newspaper uniting of the season was a success and the two colonies had mingled well.

Washed and cleaned up 3 poly nucs I've used in the past couple of months ready for a touch of paint in the next few days. These will be filled again before winter for over wintered nucs to make up any winter loses.

 

[Horseradish]

Thanks, I will give them a swap tomorrow.

 

[Bear]

Had to feed 2 nuc’s today as they had nothing stored!! Heard of a June gap but not a July one!!! I blame the weather. Wonder how queen mating will go this year, had 2 queens from last year. 1 was a non layer the 2nd didn’t lay much so both got the chop. Again I blame the weather last year as not good enough and long enough for mating flights.