What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Swarm]

Yes, well done . Now, any guess where she is in the photo in post #39 288? You can circle her in that photo and post here...to win the prize.

She is very close to six o'clock

 

[Moobee]

I installed a lovely nuc of bees from Paynes yesterday afternoon. Super calm and gentle, good BIAS (4&half frames) and a big fat queen (Henrietta) who was busily laying eggs. They were already out early this morning bringing in pale yellow pollen.
Quite a lot of bees yesterday were coming back with white faces, not sure what that might be?

My nuc I had from my friend (over 10 days ago) has not advanced at all (she said it was an overwintered colony...... )
There is still only one frame of brood & hardly any eggs. I had dummied them right down to 6 frames and wondering if I should just stick them back in a nuc but concerned the queen has gone off lay. I tried feeding with warm syrup and added some pollen sub to see if this would get her going, but no luck.
Any thoughts folks?

 

[emoclewbee]

I installed a lovely nuc of bees from Paynes yesterday afternoon. Super calm and gentle, good BIAS (4&half frames) and a big fat queen (Henrietta) who was busily laying eggs. They were already out early this morning bringing in pale yellow pollen.
Quite a lot of bees yesterday were coming back with white faces, not sure what that might be?

My nuc I had from my friend (over 10 days ago) has not advanced at all (she said it was an overwintered colony...... )
There is still only one frame of brood & hardly any eggs. I had dummied them right down to 6 frames and wondering if I should just stick them back in a nuc but concerned the queen has gone off lay. I tried feeding with warm syrup and added some pollen sub to see if this would get her going, but no luck.
Any thoughts folks?

Time to consider disease I think.
If no obvious signs of anything on inspection, I would do a OA vape, or you could do a wash to check for mites.
What miticide did your friend use?

 

[Moobee]

Time to consider disease I think.
If no obvious signs of anything on inspection, I would do a OA vape, or you could do a wash to check for mites.
What miticide did your friend use?

Apiguard in September and OA in January. I would be very surprised if it was disease TBH. My gut feeling is that despite being a 2023 queen, is that she is failing. The nuc of bees she gave me was pretty small for an overwintered one - she lives just up the coast from me and in comparison, I overwintered a nuc which was on 5 frames a few weeks ago and consequently hived.

 

[Murox]

I installed a lovely nuc of bees from Paynes yesterday afternoon. Super calm and gentle, good BIAS (4&half frames) and a big fat queen (Henrietta) who was busily laying eggs. They were already out early this morning bringing in pale yellow pollen.
Quite a lot of bees yesterday were coming back with white faces, not sure what that might be?

My nuc I had from my friend (over 10 days ago) has not advanced at all (she said it was an overwintered colony...... )
There is still only one frame of brood & hardly any eggs. I had dummied them right down to 6 frames and wondering if I should just stick them back in a nuc but concerned the queen has gone off lay. I tried feeding with warm syrup and added some pollen sub to see if this would get her going, but no luck.
Any thoughts folks?

Is it actually dwindling? holding its own just but not growing?
I have a colony I overwintered in a dummied down brood box thats healthy but still only on five frames, however it was put together late last season so Im not entirely surprised mine is slow.

 

[emoclewbee]

Apiguard in September and OA in January. I would be very surprised if it was disease TBH. My gut feeling is that despite being a 2023 queen, is that she is failing. The nuc of bees she gave me was pretty small for an overwintered one - she lives just up the coast from me and in comparison, I overwintered a nuc which was on 5 frames a few weeks ago and consequently hived.

I reared my queens in 2 batches last year.
All the May Queens came out of winter booming.
The batches from June were all a bit of a failure to be honest. After 2 not mating and combining another in August. I was left with 2 "late" queens going into winter. One died over winter, I suspect a queen failure.
The other is behind the rest of them by quite a bit and suspect will need to be requeened as soon as I get a chance.
They all emerged mid June which is when the weather changed to seemingly constant rain last year. So I am blaming the weather.

If that hive has forage, and is healthy, then poor Queen is the next most obvious answer.

 

[Wilco]

Apiguard in September and OA in January. I would be very surprised if it was disease TBH. My gut feeling is that despite being a 2023 queen, is that she is failing. The nuc of bees she gave me was pretty small for an overwintered one - she lives just up the coast from me and in comparison, I overwintered a nuc which was on 5 frames a few weeks ago and consequently hived.

Not enough nurse bees to rear large amounts of young? If you've got another hive bursting you could add a frame of sealed brood and see what happens. Keeping them in a nuc is a good idea for now. If that fails leave them alone and focus on the others.

 

[gregior]

Inspected 15 of mine today for the first time since April 4th so was expecting to see plenty of swarm activity. The bees were generally looking very good with an average of around 10 frames of BIAS amazingly although the colonies are plenty strong enough there was not 1 cell in any of them,hardly even any play cups! All the colonies have tons of stored pollen but only small amounts of honey/nectar, it think the cool weather is stopping the plants producing nectar not a drop of honey in any supers. I think the lack of stores is holding the bees back from swarming.Looks very cool for the next week so may have to think about feeding!

Saw this beastie being kicked out of one of the hives, any ideas what it could be?

 

[Garry R]

Inspected 15 of mine today for the first time since April 4th so was expecting to see plenty of swarm activity. The bees were generally looking very good with an average of around 10 frames of BIAS amazingly although the colonies are plenty strong enough there was not 1 cell in any of them,hardly even any play cups! All the colonies have tons of stored pollen but only small amounts of honey/nectar, it think the cool weather is stopping the plants producing nectar not a drop of honey in any supers. I think the lack of stores is holding the bees back from swarming.Looks very cool for the next week so may have to think about feeding!

Saw this beastie being kicked out of one of the hives, any ideas what it could be?View attachment 39629

Forecast is for virtually single figures temperature-wise for the whole of next week. Bit of rain too.

 

[gregior]

Forecast is for virtually single figures temperature-wise for the whole of next week. Bit of rain too.

Yeah it's not looking good atall,pretty much written off any spring crop this year.

 

[madasafish]

-1C this am.
Nice and sunny and 9C later on, no wind.
So inspected three nucs, found the last Queen I have failed to find this year, marked her , fed all nucs (with thymolised syrup), and supered a very strong Langstroth jumbo# which had been a two box nuc last week.

Bees all very good natured despite the cold.. no stings.

Yes I know it's not ideal but one double box Maisemore nuc will need to be split next week - 6 frames of capped brood.

# to prevent swarming - little or no nectar coming in.

 

[Moobee]

Not enough nurse bees to rear large amounts of young? If you've got another hive bursting you could add a frame of sealed brood and see what happens. Keeping them in a nuc is a good idea for now. If that fails leave them alone and focus on the others.

Cheers Wilco, good idea.

 

[Moobee]

Is it actually dwindling? holding its own just but not growing?
I have a colony I overwintered in a dummied down brood box thats healthy but still only on five frames, however it was put together late last season so Im not entirely surprised mine is slow.

Looks like it’s holding its own. Will probably follow @Wilco advice and donate a frame of sealed brood from a stronger colony (although I’m a bit limited for choice).

 

[The Poot]

Inspected four in bright sunshine, but with a very cold Northerly gusting. The bees didn’t seem to mind much.
Very interesting to see the effect of switching the brood boxes last week. The bees have lots to do and are doing a great job at drawing out comb as well as starting to fill the supers I added.
One colony looks like the queen is becoming a drone layer… some worker, but lots of drone brood. Quite defensive and attacking the hands constantly. Looks like a re queening may be on the cards.
The colony that seemed to start late has now developed beyond the others, in a week. They never stop amazing me.
No swarm preps going on (as far as I could see).

 

[Do224]

Inspected 15 of mine today for the first time since April 4th so was expecting to see plenty of swarm activity. The bees were generally looking very good with an average of around 10 frames of BIAS amazingly although the colonies are plenty strong enough there was not 1 cell in any of them,hardly even any play cups! All the colonies have tons of stored pollen but only small amounts of honey/nectar, it think the cool weather is stopping the plants producing nectar not a drop of honey in any supers. I think the lack of stores is holding the bees back from swarming.Looks very cool for the next week so may have to think about feeding!

Saw this beastie being kicked out of one of the hives, any ideas what it could be?View attachment 39629

If feeding would it be fondant or 1:1 syrup at this time of year? I’m in the same boat with two of my colonies

 

[Erichalfbee]

If feeding would it be fondant or 1:1 syrup at this time of year? I’m in the same boat with two of my colonies

I have invert on one colony.

 

[Murox]

Looks like it’s holding its own. Will probably follow @Wilco advice and donate a frame of sealed brood from a stronger colony (although I’m a bit limited for choice).

Got to be worth a try. I plan to give mine a boost tomorrow, weather has finally settled and its over 10degrees up here today.

 

[JamezF]

Today I revisited the colonies I had a quick look at yesterday afternoon. The water company (I assume) have gone a bit overboard with the bramble clearance, though it looks like they had to, to find a manhole that is still leaking. Unfortunately it's also removed any protection for the garden of the house next door, so I'd best take some honey and make a pre-emptive house call tomorrow. Not that they'll know it's my bees if they do have a problem. I know of at least two feral colonies the other side of their house. But they're bound to assume it's mine....

One colony was doing really well. but the little *****ers had made play cups all over the place. I didn't find a single charged one, but there were easily more than a dozen. There's still plenty of room for the queen to lay, but I might put a super on anyhow. I only realised yesterday that they were on a floor without a vaping rim, so I swapped it out. That got them a bit riled and I had a few followers for the rest of the inspection. Also saw the queen. Most of her red "blob" had worn off, but I decided I'd upset them enough for one day. I'll sort it next time.

The colony that was quiet yesterday only really had two frames of brood, but they were far more active than yesterday evening. I swapped their entire home -- floor, brood box, crown board and roof -- because it was a swarm from last year that arrived when I was running out of kit. The brood box had an entire family of slugs living inside. Hopefully I didn't miss any before I put it in the car.

I had three frame lugs snap on me too, when I was levering the frames sideways against the top bar inside the position of the side bars. One I had to remove completely. The others I'll try to work to the outside of the nest over the next few inspections and swap out.

James

 

[Do224]

I have invert on one colony.

I’ve no invert unfortunately. Would 1:1 be ok? They’ve both just been double brooded and each of them has about 5 frames of foundation to draw out across their two boxes.

Probably only got about one frame of stores left max in each hive (perhaps a bit less) so I’m getting nervous.

 

[lindsay s]

Update on the cutout we did on Wednesday evening. Unfortunately the queen and a lot of the sticky bees didn’t survive, it was a cold evening when they were added to the nuc. Not enough heat and bees to clean them all up. The surviving bees were united with another hive today. Not the result we wanted but the colony in the wall was due to be destroyed anyway. It was a steep learning curve for us and we would do things slightly differently the next time. On a positive note the occupants of the building were pleased that we had removed them.