What did you do in the Apiary today?

[drex]

Did my first round on Monday. Checked Wednesday and take was only 2 out of 18. It had started raining so I took the grafts in my shed, holding a hand torch which was not ideal. On Wednesday it was ideal so I did another round, this time out in the light. This time I could easily see the larvae so I was much more confident that I had transferred them rather than just a drop of Royal jelly. I will check later. Fingers crossed.

 

[madasafish]

Yesterday (Thursday) took mated queen out of mating nuc to requeen hive at local allotments. Eggs found so Q returns to mating nuc - in cage.
Today took same Queen to beginner whose hive was "definitely Queenless" .It was not: Q returns to mating nuc and released from cage.
Next week she'll be going back to Allotment to head a split.


Meanwhile grafted another 8 cells in a (probably vain) attempt to make up for my dire acceptance rate in last attempt.

Nice sunny afternoon: bees very busy.

Checked all my stands for mating nucs and did several needed repairs. (optimism they will all be needed! They won't.)

 

[drdrday]

I promised myself I'd post the results of my first attempt at grafting yesterday... no matter how bad the result!

Popped in to check the acceptance today (with grafting tool in hand, just in case I had to try again!), but I'm chuffed to report that 7 out of 10 have been accepted.
Fingers crossed they're all still there and sealed on Tuesday.

This doesn't bode well for my intentions to only keep 2-3 hives. I can see this becoming addictive!

 

[drex]

Well done. Doing better than me, but as my tag line says, one day I'll get the hang of it. Mind you my acceptance rate has doubled on second try

 

[gregior]

Inspected all mine today really really strong flow on from the clover,bramble,thistle and rosebay. Room for the queens to lay was very short in most hives so added extra space where possible. My star colony had decided to start swarm preps they're really strong and I want to keep them together if possible so I knocked the cells down and will split next visit if they put more cells up. All of my supers are in use but not ready for extraction yet so had to resort to adding brood boxes of foundation as supers to a couple as it's all I have left. Could be a very good season here if the promised settled spell later next week materialises.

 

[madasafish]

I promised myself I'd post the results of my first attempt at grafting yesterday... no matter how bad the result!

Popped in to check the acceptance today (with grafting tool in hand, just in case I had to try again!), but I'm chuffed to report that 7 out of 10 have been accepted.
Fingers crossed they're all still there and sealed on Tuesday.

This doesn't bode well for my intentions to only keep 2-3 hives. I can see this becoming addictive!

Well done

I can assure you ,beekeeping is a drug.

Once you had have it , you cannot get enough

I believe it's as expensive as heroin...but more difficult to obtain a fix.

 

[The Poot]

Had a look into the mating nucs at the farm and found eggs/larvae. My mate checked two other sites with mixed results, three out of three now laying at one but only one from four at the other.
I considered collapsing the last Demarree, haven't swapped frames since June 11th. Looking to see how much backfilling was going on, I found honey arcs. Second frame stuffed with young brood and a beautiful queen casually strolling the comb.
I enjoyed the moment and said 'they've kept quiet about you'. She ignored me and stuck her snout into a cell of nectar
Strange observation today, every colony was runny.

Interesting- mine were all runny yesterday. One was quite a bit more defensive too. I hope normal service will be resumed next week.

 

[B+.]

@Brian Bush is leading an effort to improve his local mongrel. To that end, he already has 10 full-sister queens (daughters of NL-55-35-15-2020) in mating nucs from a grafting session in my apiary on 13th June. I grafted 20 larvae from NL-55-35-31-2020 last night and Brian took them back to his apiary to grow them on into virgin queens. It is hoped that these two groups of closely related queens will form the basis of a drone flooded area where future queens will mate and the local mongrels more aggressive traits may be improved along with improving its productivity.
#15 (mated on Vlieland) and #31 (mated on Norderney) are maternal half-sisters, stemming from a single root NL-55-3-8-2018. So, the prospect of having up to 30 closely-related drone-producing queens in an area should make a difference.
I'll leave it to Brian to comment about progress.

 

[pargyle]

Just had a look through all mine ... all looking good - brood in all the boxes (I don't look too far but no signs of swarming) supers filling again (they had eaten a fair bit with the lousy weather) added a fourth super to one colony. Nuc with new queen now back in the apiary and no signs of the previous robbing - plenty of capped brood that will be emerging in the next few days so it's going to be fine. There was a lovely smell of ripening honey in the air last night so there's plenty of forage about ... time to be making up some more frames I think as I found a couple of new supers I'd forgotten I had that I think I will need .... I HOPE I will need ...

Don't you just love it when they are all doing what they are supposed to be doing for a change ?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Another swarm from the tree bees...shaken down from a tree in neighbours field
As an aside, a colony that was full of drones.................I mean really full, you could hardly see the frames or any workers for drones on every frame, now has a mated queen and absolutely no drones....not one.

 

[pargyle]

Another swarm from the tree bees...shaken down from a tree in neighbours field
As an aside, a colony that was full of drones.................I mean really full, you could hardly see the frames or any workers for drones on every frame, now has a mated queen and absolutely no drones....not one.

Don't you just love it when they are not doing anything they should be doing and you have absolutely no idea what's going on ?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Don't you just love it when they are not doing anything they should be doing and you have absolutely no idea what's going on ?

Yes somebody pointed out in curly's thread about drones that they were attracted to colonies with a virgin queen....and this was certainly one but I have never seen that many ...ever.

 

[spiderplantman]

Took a walk out into the fields to find a borage field in full bloom covered in our bees, then walked in the opposite direction to walk down an avenue of lime trees in full bloom, covered in the other 50% of our bees (and a lot of dead bumbles underneath, their brains pecked out by the Great Tits).

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Local today - went around the farm apiaries, adding supers and making sure everything in place for the next tranche of SBI DASH benchmark inspections.
Supered three of this year's early nucs (now in hives obviously)

 

[StephenT]

Found the queen that emerged in hive 1 about 4 weeks ago after a supersedure and marked her (pre and post photos attached). Lovely brood quantity and pattern. She‘s a granddaughter of a BS Honeybees Buckfast and so will keep an eye on temperament when the brood starts emerging as have seen posts in the past about possible aggression after a couple of generations. Put a nuc into a brood box ready to merge in a few days with the queenless hive next door. These were the two halves of a nuc method swarm control some weeks ago. Quick check of local mongrel runny bee hive who are nicely drawing super no.4 put on last week.

 

[madasafish]

Checked my last attempt at grafting 2 out of 8. I really struggled even with magnification to see.

Nicot next..

 

[Markthebuilder]

Made an eke for the wbc hive from some spare hardwood I had, then realised it wasn’t deep enough……. Measure twice cut once….. comes to mind

 

[Murox]

Went to the farm apiary this afternoon. Pleased to see there is finally some real progress and honey being made. Plenty of good things in flower, loads of borage, bramble, ox-eye daisies, rosebay willowherb in patches, phacelia and more and a field of mustard but it is still very dry.

 

[Wilco]

Went to the in-laws and took a look at the nuc I gave them a month or two ago (they wanted to start beekeeping and I'm advising). Seems I've given them the gentlest queen I've bred and they're doing incredibly well- filling a brood box and about ready to think about going up so super on today.

Wife insisted on taking a look without any PPE despite my protests that it wasn't worth the risk. This is the first time she's looked in a hive. I'm never going to hear the end of this... (secretly a little bit proud).

 

[E&MBees]

Checked on a newly mated queen. She is laying very nicely. Just need to wait for the brood to be capped as workers and I will breathe a sigh of relief.