What did you do in the Apiary today?

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Morning run to check Tŷ Uchaf and Gelli apiaries the queen in the swarmed hive has now mated and is laying like a train, already three frames of sealed brood in the last week, also, for a swarmed hive it is still packed with bees so can't see there being much of a hiatus here waiting for new bees to emerge. Took another nuc off a Demarree'd hive at the Gelli (foolish not to as she's always been a productive queen - both bees and honey and I think they will be superseding her this season so, belt and braces time.
Not much forage around now as the hawthorn is well and truly over but the good news is, a lot of the bramble flower buds are showing a bit of white with one or two already open.
after lunch, popped over to the castle (catching up at the moment thanks to the wet weather) to check on the nucs which I expected the queens to get mated and laying by now. One has always been very quiet and I didn't have much hopes for her, but fair play, already two frames with sealed worker brood, another one there must have mated not long after mating as there are four frames full of sealed brood and not much room as they seemed to have gone bonkers storing pollen from the hawthorn, so another trip there tomorrow to hive them (the nucs are staying at the apiary to make up for winter losses.)

 

[GuyNir]

Cloudy and drizzly again today, 16c. Still bees are flying. Bees coming in (landing) very heavy, so the flow is still on.

 

[Foxylad]

Picked up two swarms, one next to a pub that a friend drinking there gave me a call.
The other was at a work colleague called me about. Saw the queen marked blue. No idea where she came from as the house is on a private estate to my knowledge no beekeepers for miles.

 

[Nannysbees]

Disaster!!!!!! Our very strong hive with our bought queen inspected today, no queen, eggs or larvae and a shed load of charged queen cells. One question, probably been asked many times.Across all the brood frames all available cells filled with nectar,have four supers on, drawn ,and plenty of nectar but nothing capped fair amount of space available. Why are they not taking the nectar up to the supers to provide more laying room and how do you encourage this now we have one charged cell?

 

[madasafish]

Disaster!!!!!! Our very strong hive with our bought queen inspected today, no queen, eggs or larvae and a shed load of charged queen cells. One question, probably been asked many times.Across all the brood frames all available cells filled with nectar,have four supers on, drawn ,and plenty of nectar but nothing capped fair amount of space available. Why are they not taking the nectar up to the supers to provide more laying room and how do you encourage this now we have one charged cell?

They are collecting more nectar than they can process into honey so dumping nectar in all open cells as near to the entrance as possible so they can collect more.

.

 

[North End Bees]

They are collecting more nectar than they can process into honey so dumping nectar in all open cells as near to the entrance as possible so they can collect more.

Yes, they'll move it up during the night. Then tomorrow they'll fill those vacated cells with tomorrow's incoming!

 

[Nannysbees]

Yes that's what's happening at the cost of filling up potential laying room and killing the queen. Same in the brood and a half. Do we remove some of the nectar filled frames with foundation or will they continue to fill with nectar? How to solve the problem?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Yes that's what's happening at the cost of filling up potential laying room and killing the queen.

I don't think you can conflate them storing nectar in the brood with them killing the queen.
With a flow on they will always dump nectar in the nearest available cell and move it up in the night when they have more time.

How to solve the problem?

Not really a problem - it's how bees work

 

[Nannysbees]

I don't think you can conflate them storing nectar in the brood with them killing the queen.
With a flow on they will always dump nectar in the nearest available cell and move it up in the night when they have more time.

Not really a problem - it's how bees work

OK thank you

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Disaster!!!!!! Our very strong hive with our bought queen inspected today, no queen, eggs or larvae and a shed load of charged queen cells. One question, probably been asked many times.Across all the brood frames all available cells filled with nectar,have four supers on, drawn ,and plenty of nectar but nothing capped fair amount of space available. Why are they not taking the nectar up to the supers to provide more laying room and how do you encourage this now we have one charged cell?

The shed load of charged queen cells is the critical part of your post. The hive is currently nectar blocked and may have been for a while given no eggs or larva present. How long since you last inspected and what did you see then? Are you certain the Queen is missing or just didn't see her? What action have you taken about the shed load of charged queen cells? You need to read Wally Shaws WBKA leaflet about Queen cells in the hive and take swarm control action immediately although your mention of one charged cell does make me wonder if you already have.

 

[North End Bees]

Do we remove some of the nectar filled frames with foundation or will they continue to fill with nectar?

Don't need to remove the frames. As long as there continues to be space above they'll move it up. They'll make room for brood when it's needed.

 

[drdrday]

Did my first extraction of the year - 2 full supers and a couple more capped frames from my B hive. I got 24kg of honey but probably produced nearly the same weight of sweat! Wonder how long it'll take the bees to pay for air conditioning and a big electric extractor

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The usual Sunday escape to the solitude of the range today with sandwich and a flask so no need to hurry back. Inspected 15 colonies and shook out two nucs with drone layers. I think the queen in one of the other nucs has gone out to see the boys today as well as there was a heck of a lot of activity on the front of the nuc which has settled down a little while later.
After a leisurely lunch in the shade of the quarry, popped over to the castle to hive the nuc which looked a bit crowded yesterday. Queen emerged a little over four weeks ago, nuc now on four frames of brood and packed with pollen and stores.
Then back home for tea and medals (after patiently waiting for the clown in the merc to reverse slowly (and badly) up to the mountain crossroads as he didn't like the look of the layby where I'd driven into the shallow ditch to let him use to pass

 

[Nannysbees]

The shed load of charged queen cells is the critical part of your post. The hive is currently nectar blocked and may have been for a while given no eggs or larva present. How long since you last inspected and what did you see then? Are you certain the Queen is missing or just didn't see her? What action have you taken about the shed load of charged queen cells? You need to read Wally Shaws WBKA leaflet about Queen cells in the hive and take swarm control action immediately although your mention of one charged cell does make me wonder if you already have.

Inspected a week ago after leaving the bought queen to settle in. I commented when she arrived that she was small compared to the other bought queen. Went through with a fine tooth comb and couldn't find her, haven't seen fresh eggs only young from the previous queen which we despatched a 24 hours before adding the new bought queen, despatched due to a very bad case of chalkbrood.

The mistake we made with another hive when we did a split was to leave the bees that were left to do their thing on advice, they had produced 8 queen cells.In hindsight we should have left them with one or two and off course they swarmed, lesson learned.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

the previous queen which we despatched a 24 hours before adding the new bought queen,

You waited too long - should have put the new queen in immediately after squishing the old one.

 

[sean-a]

Hived a couple of Nucs on a new apiary - a farm with field beans just coming into flower.
I pinched a couple of drawn frames and a couple of frames of brood from other nucs to give them a head start.
They both have bought in queens from a certain Scottish breeder, so I have high hopes for the season...allthough I am a little late to profit from the beans!

 

[sean-a]

Hived another swarm today too on another apiary.
Big fat very black queen who has been quite prolific.
I have been using them to draw comb and to pinch brood from, but she is doing so well I have hived her.

Marked another queen from another swarm, she sort of froze after marking her, then came too and froze again.
I have popped her in a cage sealed with fondant to give her a couple of hours to recover before they chew through.

Yet another big big swarm on the apiary, I noticed that I had sealed the entrance disc this morning when I went back this evening to hive the swarm above. Gutted...I thought that I have killed them, but when I opened them up....they all spilled out non the worse for my incompetence..
Pinched a couple of frames drawn comb from them for the hived swarm, to knock them back and to make up for pinching so much resource from the first swarm.

Too many colonies

 

[Michael Palmer]

Early this morning we moved group 1 mating nucs to a new location. We first dropped them in their original location that I've use for years. As we were dropping them on May 28, the landowner informs me that the tenant farmer no longer wants bees on the farm. Oh Boy! So we left them on the farm until I was sure the new queens were laying, and moved them to their new location. These are a group of 2-way mating nucs that we built this past winter, replacing one group that were 4-way. Trying to increase the return of queens from their mating flight. 2-ways painted with different colours, with better wind protection and landmarks than the old location. we'll see....



View attachment 26653

We caught the queens in these new 2-way mating nucs. Caught 113/128 or 88%. Excellent results and the best catch in a long time.

 

[Swarm]

Took another batch of cells for the incubator, the last lot started emerging as I was putting these in.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Took another batch of cells for the incubator, the last lot started emerging as I was putting these in.

Are you selling queens or expanding your empire, Steve?