What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Swarm]

Makes me wonder sometimes, the gamble they take, especially this time in the year

Certainly wondering what they were thinking of and why? They had flown about twenty yards and ended up behind the hives on the centre stand, heck of a lot of them were under the floor of one hive, possibly confused after I took the queen away.
It gets better, I grabbed the nuc as it had some comb in it but I needed to add more frames. As I adjusted them, up she comes and takes to the wing but I caught her and deflected her back into the box and quickly placed the roof on.
It's a first for me.

 

[DaveG23]

Inspected the hives & nucs in my garden. Both hives are showing signs that they may fill up a super or 2 if this better weather holds. Bees are busy on the fuchsia today. Still have lots of drone yet to emerge, a good sign for a few queens that still need to be mated at another site.

3 out of 4 nucs have laying queens and should be strong enough to over winter, 1 is a dud.

 

[E&MBees]

Certainly wondering what they were thinking of and why? They had flown about twenty yards and ended up behind the hives on the centre stand, heck of a lot of them were under the floor of one hive, possibly confused after I took the queen away.
It gets better, I grabbed the nuc as it had some comb in it but I needed to add more frames. As I adjusted them, up she comes and takes to the wing but I caught her and deflected her back into the box and quickly placed the roof on.
It's a first for me.

Well saved!

 

[gregior]

Popped a few crown boards to confirm there is indeed a very strong balsam flow on here,more supers going on tomorrow.

 

[BugsInABox]

Sat and watched them for a bit this evening. Worried a saw robbing, certainly some action at the entrance. Light fading but after a bit I think I convinced myself it’s drones they are evicting. I’ll have a look in them tomorrow and see which direction their stores have gone in.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Yesterday did the home apiary as SWMBO is away and winding up the colony from hell wouldn't be an issue, just a quick status check really, looks like most of the colonies are having a brood break so checking progress of new queens and such was not really possible. Really depressing to see hives with stacks of supers on but brimming with bees not honey......
Apart from one, she took off like a rocket in spring to fill three supers and now I have three supers packed again and they're working on the fourth,
There is nectar coming in, but not a massive amount and I doubt the heather will save us this year .

 

[captain666]

Had to change a floor on one hive. Open mesh with tray inserted.

The reason was that a wasp's nest was built between the open mesh and the tray, a gap of about 60mm. They abandoned it as they couldn't enlarge their nest for the tray prevented them from doing so. I'll cut it open later to have a look.

BTW very few wasps in my neck of the woods this year.

Fred.

 

[Barbarian]

Collected some cleared supers from my off-hive clearing system. Shook off the hangers on when I got home. Perhaps I should try a hand hairdrier on cold.

Had passing looks at the two Borage plants in the home border ... doing a bee count. I am very imoressed by the number of flowers on the plants.

 

[DaveG23]

First proper warm day in well over a month, one of those days you know you will be stunning even when you look outside at 7am.

So thought I would take the chance to look in to a hive that has turned very pissy for the last 3 weeks, suspect they don't yet have a laying queen. Had to give up after removing the supers. Despite the lovely weather they are still in a terrible mood. Will have to come back with welding gloves and maybe a sugar spray.

While I was there a cast swarm came out from a hive, I had missed 2 queen cells.. swarm hived and I took an emerged virgin to give to a friend who is having terrible luck getting queens mated

 

[beeno]

Went for a walk in the neighbourhood to see if the bees were on the heather. Yes, a honey bee every 50cm. Bees fanning at the hive entrance and a lovely scent coming through the open windows tonight. The hives have a lot of brood at the moment so I don't know if it is going to translate into surplus honey. Wait and see I guess.

 

[Angry_Mob]

First proper warm day in well over a month, one of those days you know you will be stunning even when you look outside at 7am.

First proper warm day here as well, bbq weather.

Good day generally in the apiary as well, built up a few brood boxes roofs and floors this morning. Had 3 nucs that have been pissy the last few inspections but with the good weather they were on fine form today. Queen in a BS honey nuc started laying after over a month since emerging, couldn't find any sign of the queen on the other side so united them. Made up a few apideas and popped a few queen cells in them. Couple of queens I purchased in are accepted and laying.

 

[Beekeeper Brownie]

I was planning on putting in clearer boards in the hives at both sites but some still is not ripe plus there seems to be a small flow on at both sites which I was not expecting.

Most of the colonies were ok. I put one 6 frame nuc which also had a 5 framed super (Masiemore Poly) into a full size commercial brood and put the five capped super frames at the edges of the super and then put in 5 drawn frames in the centre.

I also had two surprises, both involving queens. Firstly, I had marked and clipped a new queen who was laying well last weekend which I found dead today! I found her on the OMF after seeing a lot of emergency q cells and no eggs. She was a daughter of a Q from BS Honey I had purchased last year,her hive had a lovely temperament, I would have preferred losing another Q before her. The other queen incident was discovering a recently mated Q is actually a drone layer . I've now got two replacements on order from BS Honey again after having success with their Buckfasts before. I will only buy in when I have problems, normally towards the end of the season.

 

[Newbeeneil]

Put 8 clearer boards onto hives in my main apiary tonight ready to extract before it gets too hot tomorrow morning.
Replaced two solid floors with OMFs where the bees were bearding. Hopefully that will keep them cooler.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Shall I stick or twist? Always a gamble, especially adding foundation, later in the season. Will you have a good enough flow to enable them to draw the wax, fill it and cap it along with the combs that still contain nectar? I don't think you will and instead you may find the bees ignore the semi filled and muck about drawing wax on central frames of the new super and you end up with quite a bit of unripe honey.
I wouldn't give them a super, save it for a good early flow next year. Go through the super they have and move uncapped or part filled to the centre and move the capped ones out.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Just got back from feeding the nucs at three apiarys..
Inspected three colonys at Corley this afternoon, all a/s splits from earlier on in the year, one of the colonys that is brood and a half has two good capped supers and 8 frames of solid brood in the brood box managed to find the Queen in this hive as she has been very alusive all season and marked her a lovely black queen and very prolific she is a daughter of a black queen from mbc.

 

[madasafish]

Went through all my nucs: feeding three out of six.

Went through the nine Q+ mating nucs left - fed as required.

Tried to go through the horrible hive -Q marked white to aid finding her- first two b boxes no queen. Gave up at that point as v hot and sweaty, bees very annoyed and visitors... Job for Sunday after yoga when I should feel brave enough..

 

[Clivewoodford]

Strange year for requeening 3 out of my 5 hives have decided to replace their queens even though the old ones (last years) seemed to be doing a great job, and only 1 of the 3 showing a mated queen.

 

[drex]

Quick inspections today, mainly to check on the supers. What do the bees know that I don't?
They are ramming the brood boxes with honey leaving supers near empty. I would expect to see this during winter preps. I scored the cappings to encourage them to move it up, but feel I will probably end up removing full frames and putting in empty, even foundation if this weather keeps up.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Quick inspections today, mainly to check on the supers. What do the bees know that I don't?
They are ramming the brood boxes with honey leaving supers near empty. I would expect to see this during winter preps. I scored the cappings to encourage them to move it up, but feel I will probably end up removing full frames and putting in empty, even foundation if this weather keeps up.

I’ve done that with a couple already.

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

Watered the plants that are giving nectar, checked wasp traps, watched the coming and going, then headed for the shade. All seemed well, other than being buzzed by wasps. Yesterday listened to the cricket and made some experimental tunnel entrances.