What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Parsonage Bees]

Well I was standing next to one of my hives and the sky was doing this earlier. Nacreous clouds. Amazing.
Lasted about 20 minutes before the sun dropped lower and the regular clouds rolled in.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Well I was standing next to one of my hives and the sky was doing this earlier. Nacreous clouds. Amazing.
Lasted about 20 minutes before the sun dropped lower and the regular clouds rolled in.

View attachment 38420

Wonderful. They were on Welsh weather news too

 

[Curly green finger's]

It's here already...the morning is bright and fine, but of course it is the longest day of the year down here. I don't like the longest day, it gets here too quickly and then it's all downhill. Anyhow, I look forward to the updates over there as the flowers start to appear.

How is the season going antipodes,we don’t have many on here from your neck of the earth posting about the honey flows .

 

[Antipodes]

How is the season going antipodes,we don’t have many on here from your neck of the earth posting about the honey flows .

Not too bad Curly. Some spring honey because some gums flowered and it was a mild winter. Then it got too dry and still is. Bursaria spinosa is flowering now and should yield a bit, then leatherwood in the forests. All over end of February .

 

[Curly green finger's]

Not too bad Curly. Some spring honey because some gums flowered and it was a mild winter. Then it got too dry and still is. Bursaria spinosa is flowering now and should yield a bit, then leatherwood in the forests. All over end of February .

Pitisporum family excuse the spelling we have a few variety’s over here which I use to like using as specimen shrubs , does it grow wild where you live?
Hope you get some overnight rain to help with the flows and February is an age away when there’s honey to be gathered by the bees
How’s swarming been this season?

 

[Antipodes]

Pitisporum family excuse the spelling we have a few variety’s over here which I use to like using as specimen shrubs , does it grow wild where you live?
Hope you get some overnight rain to help with the flows and February is an age away when there’s honey to be gathered by the bees
How’s swarming been this season?

Yes, spot on mate and thanks! It's the shrub/tree with the white flowers in the attached little video.
I've worked hard to stop swarming but I don't think it's been a big swarming year. I've tried a few methods, but think Demaree is probably the best proactive one.

 

[Do224]

Checked on my garden hive today and amazed to see they still have a huge cluster (at least it looks unusually large to me?)

I guess I better keep a close eye on this one as they’ll be munching through their stores quicker than the others…

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Well, not quite at the apiary - but ten yards from someone ese's (Protheroe's) at the old Bethel lighting the fire that hopefully
View attachment 20231223_161434_46759715651171.mp4
will still be in at 0500 Christmas morning when I open up for the early 'Plygain' service.

 

[Goran]

Today checked all hives and added nylon on top. Still all alive and kicking. Too warm, bees flying all day. Even one bumblebee landed on my chest to rest a bit.. Now won't see them for some roughly 2 weeks, going on some visit to France..

 

[The Poot]

Today checked all hives and added nylon on top. Still all alive and kicking. Too warm, bees flying all day. Even one bumblebee landed on my chest to rest a bit.. Now won't see them for some roughly 2 weeks, going on some visit to France..

Bon voyage!
Tell the French to keep their Asian Hornets to themselves!

 

[Superlativesoul]

Used my new gas vape for the first time on Thursday on my 2 hives ,then 3 more of my friends .Glad no bad reactions from the bees .Weather was warm and bees flying ,which was good to see .
John

 

[Curly green finger's]

Checked on my garden hive today and amazed to see they still have a huge cluster (at least it looks unusually large to me?)

I guess I better keep a close eye on this one as they’ll be munching through their stores quicker than the others…

View attachment 38433

Is this one of the double brood colony’s that you’ve weighed recently?

 

[Malcolm B.]

What have I done in the Apiary today? Nothing!

I walk past my (now) single occupied hive two or three times a day on the way to and from the chickens.

I've seen quite a lot of external activity but they are probably just 'voiding flights' since I doubt if there is anything out there attractive to the bees.

The hive is tucked up with slabs of Celotext held together with duct tape and rain-proofed with several layers of clingfilm. the floor board is in place and the crown board under the roof is also well insulated, rain-proofed and draught-proofed but easy to slip to one side to check for supplies. Hopefully they will remain reasonably warm if the weather begins to be really cold.

I have a syrup feeder in the hive and on warm days I'll slip open the top and check the syrup level. . It's only slowly going down at present and the hive is quite heavy so they seem to be okay.

I've had loads of other things to get on with, and nothing to do with playing with bees so I haven't been here for a while, . . . but I'm here now to -

Wish you all the very best of the season's greetings
and hope you have a prosperous New Year

Malcolm B.

 

[Do224]

Is this one of the double brood colony’s that you’ve weighed recently?

No they’re single brood. My other three colonies have a much smaller cluster, maybe a third of the size of this one. Not sure if this one is unusually big or if the others are on the small size…? Maybe it’s the type of bee? They’re all swarms that arrived in my bait hive but the big colony does seem to have bees that are less dark in colour

 

[StephenT]

15 degrees today, all 5 hives flying and a small amount of almost white pollen coming in. One hive on single brood box dummied down to 8 frames seemed very strong going into autumn but is the quietest of the lot now. Hopefully not a failing queen. Only a couple of months now until the cherry blossom is out.

 

[Hedgerow Honey]

Continued the first round of winter vaping. Having a second instavap is a massive help.
We managed forty eight nucs in under an hour yesterday on a single site.
Quite a lot of very light colonies that were fine three weeks ago, suspect there's still plenty of brooding going on and most colonies have flying bees.

 

[Wilco]

Sublimated some hives for an in-law whilst here and had a good chat about bees and woodworking.

 

[Lolly Bee]

Oxaliced (if that can be a word. Maybe insert at K?) and amazed at how full the hives were of incredibly calm bees (even the Hive 1 who are horrible). Feeling somewhat relieved that they are alive and apparently thriving.

 

[Goran]

I saw first hives in France few days ago, three DBs and nuc, seems some hobby beek. No one was near to start small talk. But nice to see them..

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

went up to feed the chickens, and as no bees were flying, so no need for PPE, I just went ahead and repositioned a few hives to make room for a bit of civil engineering I'm hoping will happen shortly - the council are 'kindly' installing a French drain to alleviate a problem they caused when installing a very badly designed enviro-drainage system they installed at the neighbouring new workshops.