What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Wilco]

Why is it that the ones which are ankle biters always seem to have the fiercest stings. Its like they really mean it.

Looks like queens from swarm control and in Kielers are mating successfully. Double brood I've decided are a pain but work for some colonies. Not so much for others. Also wondering if queens go through drone semen one at a time. Would make sense of why colonies which were fine last year are decidedly more twitchy this year. Hawthorn seems to be somewhere between flowing and trickling. Lime in bud.

Some clearer boards on at OSR sites. Early start for me tomorrow. Not a great deal of honey but better than nothing.

Would have been a good fishing day today.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Would have been a good fishing day today.

I’ve bought Stan a home smoking kit for his birthday. He used to be a keen fisherman and still has all his kit. I’m hoping his prezzie might just rekindle his interest.

 

[Swarm]

Broke down cells to singles in a couple of hives and removed two queens to nucs after finding charged cells. Set up Amm mating nucs and gave them some thin syrup. Next Monday will transfer some more cells.
Had one colony today looks like it's been foraging tar, all around the frame lugs was black and so were my gloves by the time I'd finished.
Also arranged with landowner to fix the stand under the oak tree next week, they are a booming colony with the heaviest supers at the apiary again this year, Half this stand has had it and the last thing we need is to find this lot gone over.

 

[Wilco]

I’ve bought Stan a home smoking kit for his birthday. He used to be a keen fisherman and still has all his kit. I’m hoping his prezzie might just rekindle his interest.

Well it is trout season...

I'm sure it's not what it was but didn't Wales used to be spectacular for sea trout too? The former army chaplain who Christened me when I was a baby lives in Llandysul and I believe has fallen into a similar state of angling apostasy. Hopefully not irredeemably so- perhaps the two could encourage each other!

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

Discovered that a quarantined collected swarm had absconded - into the neighbouring nuc with another, much smaller, swarm. How convenient!

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

Grafting today was easy-peasy - after an absolutely miserable experience last week when the technique seemed to have deserted me forever. In the end I got there and 6/10 were accepted. Today, before leaving the house, I tested and discarded some of the tools, and took time to get the feeling of how much pressure (very little) was needed to bend the 'blade' under the back of a larva. It also helped to kind of lean the tool very slightly back, away from the larva, to load it on to the blade.

I can't manage a paint brush at all, nor the stainless steel tool. I swither between plastic and bamboo Chinese tools; I doubt there's much difference though some individual tools are maybe better than others.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Well it is trout season...

I'm sure it's not what it was but didn't Wales used to be spectacular for sea trout too? The former army chaplain who Christened me when I was a baby lives in Llandysul and I believe has fallen into a similar state of angling apostasy

The environment agency then their spawn National resources Wales have let the river conditions get into an awful state, salmon are now catch and release only, but a few decent specimens have come out of the Towy the last few weeks. and there are some serious restrictions on sewin, some of the rules on stocking trout (brought in to enable their predecessors Dwr Cymru to renege on mitigation agreements worth millions) are ludicrous still a good few brown trout out there, especially on the Teifi, but with NRW turning a blind eye to serious pollution/habitat damage, many rivers are sick. The river Wye in fact is in a terminal state.
Many serious anglers I know have almost given up.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

I'm not in love with any particular method of queen cell raising - yet. Last week I started one that worked well for me last year for several cycles - a queenless nuc which is continually restocked with open brood. Today I used a Cloake board (queenless for a day, then queenright). That also worked well last year, but it was much harder to keep it going for several cycles. The other procedure I've used is putting a protected queen cell into a colony (especially a defensive one) and hope that it forces supersedure. Roger Paterson says he gets 80% success with this which is much higher than I've achieved. But it's easy and you don't lose anything if it doesn't work - apart from being back at square one.

 

[Moobee]

Nice easy swarm collection this morning. The call said they were in a small tree but were actually low down in a Leptospermum bush. I managed to shake them into a nuc but the reaminder took a while to all go in and it wasn't until it started pouring that I got most of them in, even though the rest of the gang were Nasonoving like mad at the entrance.

On the way back, I had an SOS from a fellow beekeeper who's bees had swarmed onto a fence post in her garden. She has developed a reaction to stings & is waiting for her new epipen. By this time it's bucketing down so I'm out in the pouring rain, scooping bees off the post into a spare hive and trying to smoke the rest of them up from the floor. They were absolutely sodden and very cross and I'm glad I took my leather gauntlets just in case as they were covered in stings by the time we had (we hoped) most of them and the queen in the box. She just called to say they were still all there, so all good.

Then home for a well deserved cuppa and to dry out! Wet through to my smalls.

I'm dropping the easy swarm off at one of the newish beeks hives this evening as she lost her bees over winter - they were a tiny cast swarm late in the season, so probably didn't build up enough. We're going to OA trickle them to mop up any mites that might have been passengers and i'll leave her 4 pints of 1:1 thymolised syrup to feed them in a few days (only if they need it) as weather looks a bit pants for the next week here.
Hoping these bees will do better.

 

[Wilco]

The environment agency then their spawn National resources Wales have let the river conditions get into an awful state, salmon are now catch and release only, but a few decent specimens have come out of the Towy the last few weeks. and there are some serious restrictions on sewin, some of the rules on stocking trout (brought in to enable their predecessors Dwr Cymru to renege on mitigation agreements worth millions) are ludicrous still a good few brown trout out there, especially on the Teifi, but with NRW turning a blind eye to serious pollution/habitat damage, many rivers are sick. The river Wye in fact is in a terminal state.
Many serious anglers I know have almost given up.

Don't get me started on the EA!

It's heartbreaking isn't it, especially the Wye. I was fortunate to do a canoe camp down it perhaps 20 years ago and had never seen so many large fish. Great swimming back then too.

 

[JamezF]

No idea if it's just the weather over the last few days, or that the sycamore is over, but there was a noticeable drop in volume in the home apiary this evening. More of a purr than a roar.

James

 

[The Poot]

Nice easy swarm collection this morning. The call said they were in a small tree but were actually low down in a Leptospermum bush. I managed to shake them into a nuc but the reaminder took a while to all go in and it wasn't until it started pouring that I got most of them in, even though the rest of the gang were Nasonoving like mad at the entrance.

On the way back, I had an SOS from a fellow beekeeper who's bees had swarmed onto a fence post in her garden. She has developed a reaction to stings & is waiting for her new epipen. By this time it's bucketing down so I'm out in the pouring rain, scooping bees off the post into a spare hive and trying to smoke the rest of them up from the floor. They were absolutely sodden and very cross and I'm glad I took my leather gauntlets just in case as they were covered in stings by the time we had (we hoped) most of them and the queen in the box. She just called to say they were still all there, so all good.

Then home for a well deserved cuppa and to dry out! Wet through to my smalls.

I'm dropping the easy swarm off at one of the newish beeks hives this evening as she lost her bees over winter - they were a tiny cast swarm late in the season, so probably didn't build up enough. We're going to OA trickle them to mop up any mites that might have been passengers and i'll leave her 4 pints of 1:1 thymolised syrup to feed them in a few days (only if they need it) as weather looks a bit pants for the next week here.
Hoping these bees will do better.
View attachment 39981

Well done you

 

[The Poot]

Nice easy swarm collection this morning. The call said they were in a small tree but were actually low down in a Leptospermum bush. I managed to shake them into a nuc but the reaminder took a while to all go in and it wasn't until it started pouring that I got most of them in, even though the rest of the gang were Nasonoving like mad at the entrance.

On the way back, I had an SOS from a fellow beekeeper who's bees had swarmed onto a fence post in her garden. She has developed a reaction to stings & is waiting for her new epipen. By this time it's bucketing down so I'm out in the pouring rain, scooping bees off the post into a spare hive and trying to smoke the rest of them up from the floor. They were absolutely sodden and very cross and I'm glad I took my leather gauntlets just in case as they were covered in stings by the time we had (we hoped) most of them and the queen in the box. She just called to say they were still all there, so all good.

Then home for a well deserved cuppa and to dry out! Wet through to my smalls.

I'm dropping the easy swarm off at one of the newish beeks hives this evening as she lost her bees over winter - they were a tiny cast swarm late in the season, so probably didn't build up enough. We're going to OA trickle them to mop up any mites that might have been passengers and i'll leave her 4 pints of 1:1 thymolised syrup to feed them in a few days (only if they need it) as weather looks a bit pants for the next week here.
Hoping these bees will do better.
View attachment 39981

That swarm on the post is huge - extends right down to the ground

 

[Moobee]

That swarm on the post is huge - extends right down to the ground

It was a prime swarm, it was down to the ground and all over the grass at the bottom!

 

[Newbeeneil]

Nice easy swarm collection this morning. The call said they were in a small tree but were actually low down in a Leptospermum bush. I managed to shake them into a nuc but the reaminder took a while to all go in and it wasn't until it started pouring that I got most of them in, even though the rest of the gang were Nasonoving like mad at the entrance.

On the way back, I had an SOS from a fellow beekeeper who's bees had swarmed onto a fence post in her garden. She has developed a reaction to stings & is waiting for her new epipen. By this time it's bucketing down so I'm out in the pouring rain, scooping bees off the post into a spare hive and trying to smoke the rest of them up from the floor. They were absolutely sodden and very cross and I'm glad I took my leather gauntlets just in case as they were covered in stings by the time we had (we hoped) most of them and the queen in the box. She just called to say they were still all there, so all good.

Then home for a well deserved cuppa and to dry out! Wet through to my smalls.

I'm dropping the easy swarm off at one of the newish beeks hives this evening as she lost her bees over winter - they were a tiny cast swarm late in the season, so probably didn't build up enough. We're going to OA trickle them to mop up any mites that might have been passengers and i'll leave her 4 pints of 1:1 thymolised syrup to feed them in a few days (only if they need it) as weather looks a bit pants for the next week here.
Hoping these bees will do better.
View attachment 39981

I would have put an upturned box on the top of that post and the bees would have climbed into it .

 

[The Poot]

@Newbeeneil - How would you do that?

 

[Antipodes]

Don't get me started on the EA!

It's heartbreaking isn't it, especially the Wye. I was fortunate to do a canoe camp down it perhaps 20 years ago and had never seen so many large fish. Great swimming back then too.

Dad often reminisced very enthusiastically about his kayak trip down the Wye with a mate.... presumably in the 50's.. I think the whole length of it, if that's possible?

 

[Beth]

Opinions please and thanks for reading this saga. I have two hives (1.5 brood) that were fairly weak going into winter but with good feeding etc have pulled through and are flying well. I transferred them to cleaned and scorched hives on May 1st as they had both shown signs of chalkbrood going into the winter, one more so than the other. There was a reasonable laying pattern in the half, with the brood nest starting to expand into the BB. All went well and they were quite happy with the new hives - out fanning and getting back to work. My plan A was to buy a new queen and requeen the worst one. New queen arriving Tuesday 21st. Plan B was to pull a frame from a good hive and make a nuc with her.

I went to have a check yesterday and it was not what I was expecting to see . Both had expanded the brood nest well into the BB and they were filling up with stores, but still with a little room. There was a reasonable amount of drone brood but not excessive. They were very pleasant to work with and both hives were humming contentedly. Loads of bees, and loads of flying bees..

AND THERE WERE NO EGGS . What I have is plenty of capped brood, plenty of c- shaped larva, and plenty of charged Q cells along the frames. I am not very good at finding queens but the evidence tells me there are none! Based on the state of the cells being a small larva floating, it would be far too early for them to be slimming a queen down for swarming. The Queens were obviously there after the hive change because of the expansion in the brood nests.

I am contemplating doing a Pagden split with one using the new queen, and just leaving the other one to carry on and monitor the state of the Q cells. I'll add that I lost two colonies in early winter and I suspect it's because of poor Queen mating due to the weather. Could these two Queens have just run out of sperm and been killed?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Dad often reminisced very enthusiastically about his kayak trip down the Wye with a mate.... presumably in the 50's.. I think the whole length of it, if that's possible?

yes, well for the majority of it anyway, it gets a bit shallow after Newbridge. Unfortunately nowadays, with all the raw sewage and poultry farm effluent they pump into the lower reaches it would be like paddling through pea soup.
I'll be crossing it at Builth tomorrow when I go to the Royal Welsh Smallholder's fair.
The wye is gasping it's final death throes unfortunately.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

What I have is plenty of capped brood, plenty of c- shaped larva, and plenty of charged Q cells along the frames. I am not very good at finding queens but the evidence tells me there are none! Based on the state of the cells being a small larva floating, it would be far too early for them to be slimming a queen down for swarming.

Queens don't stop laying just because they are preparing to swarm - they will lay right until the last minute.
They've swarmed I'm afraid.