What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Swarm]

Five days, maybe, just maybe at a push six but we could be talking about hours in that case. There are a number of considerations, temperature being one, not all queens emerge on day sixteen.

 

[Erichalfbee]

out of curiosity then, for how many days after an egg was laid will the bees have the option of turning it into a queen?

All larvae are fed royal jelly exclusively for three days so the answer is day six

 

[Garry R]

Modified my Swienty based long hive by adding a couple of "lifts" to allow supers to be placed above the brood area to test whether this will allow stores to be placed there rather than a slow placement on a horizontal basis. Time will tell regarding this niggle I have had but at least I will doing my inspections without the bending which aggravates my back.

 

[pargyle]

All larvae are fed royal jelly exclusively for three days so the answer is day six

See: #Post 25

https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/advice-on-a-single-sealed-qc-discovery.56827/page-2

 

[Fellstoflats]

Popped into my home apiary to heft the hives, and check on the 3 nucs I'd made up- everything had been going great guns, but I was begining to worry about the hives and their store levels.

Rounded the corner to a cloud of bees, bivouacking in the hedge..

Now the status of my colonies at this apiary was as follows:
-2 hives pre-emptively split into 2 Q+ nucs, and two Q- hives. QCs knocked down to one each, which were expected to hatch last Wednesday or so. Weather has been diabolical since, bar the odd couple of settled hours.

-Another nuc, made up to accept a queen before being united to a colony in another apiary.


All the nucs have perspex crownboards, so a quick peek revealed none to be bursting full, just ticking along nicely.

A crack of the crownboards on the hives revealed bees active on the supers, but again, not bursting.

Primed with this knowledge, I've shaken them into a brood box, and assume they're a swarm. The first of the season for me!
View attachment 39723

Best laid plans and all that...

Q- Hive one's QC failed to emerge. United the Q+ nuc back to the hive over newspaper.

Q- Hive two are acting queen right. Queen would have been due to emerge 10 days ago, and we've had a few decent days of weather, so I'm hoping she's present, and I just couldn't spot her..

The other Q+ nuc is doing well, to be brought up to a hive next weekend.

The introductory nuc seemed ok, but again, not spotted any sign of the queen, nor eggs.

Both caught swarms doing well, will give them another week before peeking in.

It's the challenges that I love, but I was secretly quite pleased with the way this apiary was shaping up... Oh well!

 

[MrMouse]

Just done my first Demaree. Absolute sky scraper. Wishing the hive was on the floor as opposed to a stand now and considering rigging guy ropes.
Going to make some splits using cells if they draw any out in the top boxes (it was double brood).

 

[markb2603]

Found what I assumed was a capped supersedure cell on the weekend but also saw eggs so assumed the existing queen was still present. Took the opportunity to do a couple of splits as I had been planning some expansion this year. Didn’t worry about where the original queen ended up as I left resources with all the splits. Just went back to check to original hive (now a nuc box). They have torn down the capped cell and I spotted the original queen running about one of the frames. Would that be common that they would tear down a supersedure cell if the colony is split? Or was it just a single swarm cell? I would have assumed if it was a swarm cell they would have gone already given the cell was capped.

On another note, I seem to be seeing more commentary about superseding colonies this year than the previous few.

 

[Swarm]

I think this year the bees have been covering all bases. I have two colonies currently superseding and found another with a single, charged cell, it was in the same condition a fortnight later.

 

[user 819]

Got round to checking my six colonies quite thoroughly today, all swinging along quite nicely . Food a little scarce but should have a few days to change that now, all very busy inside and outside.
No QC's and very few play cups , zillions of drones that would cause worry and panic for a few on here .

 

[Do224]

Got 3 of my 4 queens marked which is a relief as they’re getting harder and harder to spot now the hives are expanding. The fourth one eluded me despite being in the smallest colony!

The hive I nuc’d the queen from on 1st is still very busy and filling their first super. Hope they’re not set back too much while they’re waiting for their new queen to emerge and mate.

My two black bee colonies are still building very slowly on single brood. I was hoping to super them today but they’re still a little way off needing it I think.

 

[Wilco]

Inspections with staff and students at work with the beekeeping project, showed them the nucleus method of swarm control on one colony.

It's nice when you can predict they'd be trying to swarm and get it right with an audience.

Bees wonderfully behaved, probably didn't need suits today. One of the colonies was a swarm I collected from the uni last year on world bee day. They were ok last year but nowhere near this level. I often have a feeling apiary site influences their temperament. Anyway I'd better go and ley down to get that idea out of my head.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Added third super to one colony, the other hasn't moved out of double brood. She's only 2, should be more productive. ?
One colony, Q cups (one with egg), lots of drones, the other, no cups, few drones.
Marked both queens. Great success.
Two colonies is not enough.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Bugger I’ve ordered a queen and the queen I was going to replace( emergency queen) which I thought wasn’t laying well has over the last week started laying well and is except-able now, so when the new queen comes I’ll make a 2-4 frame nuc up instead.
History of this queen - she was an emergency cell I kept and put her into a mini nuc she got transferred last September into a dummied down 6 frame nuc and was ok borderline but ok, reasons for replacing here was patchy brood but now she has layed up lots of worker brood, if she does fail or I decide to get rid of her I’ll unite the colony later to the new nuc or replace her with a mated queen

 

[Swarm]

Bless her

 

[Curly green finger's]

Bless her

Definitely, she is hanging on!
She is bigger than I thought also no drone brood which is a good thing?

 

[Nannysbees]

Inspection today, thought it would be trouble free, but always expect the unexpected with bees!!!
Did a split as we thought they were due to swarm but maybe superseding but split anyway!!!!
May reunite as I don't want six hives.
Our strongest hive last year appeared damp with all this crud on the hive floor. We cleaned it all out and changed the brood box as it was really manky. Going to scorch and give it a lick of paint.

 

[Wilco]

'Here ladies, I've got a lovely South facing bait hive in a tree for you.'

'No thanks, that stack of shallows we can't actually get in to that's on the ground facing West is much better suited to out needs.'

'Have at you, you're getting dumped in a nuc box then.'

'Well if you insist but do we have to go in? We can smell the queen just fine through the floor mesh.'

'Faugh!'


View attachment 20240508_175453.mp4

 

[Sutty]

In the apiary today? Mainly making mistakes!
I had a colony I inspected on 30th April and found a single queen cell, unfortunately it was bridging between 2 boxes and badly damaged. I'd intended inspectig again before now (mistake 1). I found around 10 open QCs and about 3 or for sealed one. Marked a good one and went through the boxes cutting out the QCs and looking in case the queen was still there - and found her, trapping her under a COT and moving the drawing pin I'd used to mark the selected QC to show which frame she was on (mistake 2) went back through the frames to double check I'd got them all and mistakenly took out the selected cell (3) DOH!
While I was having a think I noticed the queen was conveniently poking a wing through the cage so I could clip it easily which I did - and managed to cut the thread on the cage too! (4).
So I've now done reverse vertical A/S: box under a board with hingeable "gates" with a couple of brood/stores frames with eggs & larvae, the remaining boxes on top with the queen.
All being well all the flying bees will return to the bottom box (& try to rear EQCs) but still forage and the top box will forget about swarming. I'll replace the bottom brood frames with new ones in a week and change the gates to continue removing flying bees from above.
Unite it all back at 2 weeks.
It all works! I've not used this method before!
5th mistake was another hive which has raised another single QC as they did recently, but I removed, only a few eggs and brood so they have convinced me they are trying to supersede - my mistake was seeing the queen and not clipping her!

 

[JamezF]

Had a bit of a tidy up in the bee shed, and found a load of forgotten drawn brood comb that will surely come in handy at some point. I might have put some super frames "somewhere safe", too. I don't seem to have anywhere near as many as I thought I did. They'll turn up at some point. I've been working through stacks of boxes, mentally cataloguing what (if anything) is inside them, after the bees have gone to bed.

Saw my first hornet of the season today, too. I think they've been about for a few days as I was "buzzed" by what sounded like one on Monday. And oddly enough, as I write this, it sounds like one has been trying to fly through my window.

James

 

[Newbeeneil]

Picked up a swarm Sunday evening about 1/2 mile from one of my clients apiaries. I told the nice couple whose garden the swarm settled in that it couldn’t have come from any of my hives as all the queens were clipped. Roll on 2 days and while inspecting the apiary I find a colony with many swarm cells and no queen. It appears that the only queen I’d not managed to mark and clip was the only one out of fifteen that was making swarm preparations! Doh!!!!!!