What did you do in the Apiary today?

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Did the sacrilegious thing yesterday of knocking down 2 QC’s instead of taking action. This is a hive where we reintroduced the queen 2 weeks ago (after 2 weeks in a nuc) as per a method of swarm control as described by the late Peter Little. All seemed ok and then yesterday discovered one runty looking sealed QC and one open one on separate frames. Could have been supersedure and if the same happens when we look in a few days I could be tempted to leave them to it although will probably bottle it and nuc her again.
 
Adding laying workers to a hive with no queen risks disrupting what the beekeeper has planned re introducing another queen.
To my mind a queenless colony waiting for a new queen needs protecting not invading.
 
In all the fuss of obligations and work to be done I neglected mating nucs. Today finally had time to recheck them, all are live and queens with normal brood present. Need to increase the number of mnucs, but time isn't on my side.. Later when I take down some important jobs off my shoulders I will turn into q. rearing and grown qcs will go into all of them..
 
Inspected 10 of mine today last visit to this apiary was a bit of a mess with lots of swarming and Q- colonies waiting for matings, today all had laying queens and the newly mated queens have excellent laying patterns so well pleased with that.
All the swarming seems to have stopped for the time being (hopefully for the rest of the year now) and all colonies are nice and strong going into the main flow so it's looking very promising as long as the weather plays ball.
 
Five day inspections and still no indication of swarm intent. Found a colony with one charged cell which was damaged when moving the frame so did a thorough check of both brood boxes, nothing else but a few cups, BIAS, queen seen.
I've done just three splits this year and only one had typical swarm multiple charged cells, the other two I found a charged cell and the queen soon after so put her in a nuc, only to find no more charged cells. Since then I've had two more colonies do the same plus this one today, seems a bit odd all planning supersedure. Queen ages vary.
The good news was seeing all the bramble flowering in front of the hives.
 
Swarm said:
Five day inspections and still no indication of swarm intent. Found a colony with one charged cell which was damaged when moving the frame so did a thorough check of both brood boxes, nothing else but a few cups, BIAS, queen seen.
I've done just three splits this year and only one had typical swarm multiple charged cells, the other two I found a charged cell and the queen soon after so put her in a nuc, only to find no more charged cells. Since then I've had two more colonies do the same plus this one today, seems a bit odd all planning supersedure. Queen ages vary.
The good news was seeing all the bramble flowering in front of the hives.
Click to expand...
Brambles flowering goodness me. My brambles are just leaving the ground. Roll on august and September.
 
Last week I requeened a colony or rather thought I had. I removed the white marked queen and united a 5 frame nucleus with a 2022 yellow marked queen to it using excluder over newspaper. Yesterday I went down to the apiary to consolidate the hive down to one BC and found eggs in both BCs. Found the yellow marked queen in one and then an unmarked one in the other ie the main colony had two queens ie they had superseded and I had only removed one of them!
 
Set up a couple of my newly-constructed bait hives in a shaded corner of the apiary as far away from the main group of hives (probably only about fifteen metres) as I could manage. One is a single national brood which I calculate to be about 35 litres volume and one is a double super which I think comes out at about 44 litres, but there's also the space above the floor to add in. One frame of old comb in each, with old frames and starter strips filling the rest. No lemon grass oil yet. I shall do that later.

James
 
Had a nuc from a swarm split that was really full last week, so I donated 3 frames of BIAS into other hives. This week, it’s full to bursting again and making swarm preps! So the split has been split again. Old queen plus brood, food and empty frames has gone in a nuc to the out apiary. Open swarm cell marked and I’ll take down the EQs after a week.
Happy as this was the queen I wanted to produce more queens from.
 
First chance I've had to check out the Llety'r Deryn apiary today - had to use the public footpath and jump over the fence into their garden as they've gone on holidays and locked the driveway gates! but I needed to sort out a colony with CBPV - piles of dead bees outside last week but today Is the first chance I've had to go down again.
A lot fewer dead bees now but the colony is still looking good although plenty of shakers so they are sat on a shallow on the stand - no floor, all I can do is hope they sort themselves out
 
jenkinsbrynmair said:
First chance I've had to check out the Llety'r Deryn apiary today - had to use the public footpath and jump over the fence into their garden as they've gone on holidays and locked the driveway gates! but I needed to sort out a colony with CBPV - piles of dead bees outside last week but today Is the first chance I've had to go down again.
A lot fewer dead bees now but the colony is still looking good although plenty of shakers so they are sat on a shallow on the stand - no floor, all I can do is hope they sort themselves out
Click to expand...

Is there anything to stop robbing from under the floor? Is under the floor also the entrance?
 
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