What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Curly green finger's]

Charged and introduced virgins just.

 

[Nannysbees]

Called to two swarms today, one on the Aston Martin plant, they offered us a tour of the plant as a thank you.
The second just as interesting , in a compost bin. Successfully retrieved them both and both passed onto other Beekeepers

 

[JamezF]

Called to two swarms today, one on the Aston Martin plant, they offered us a tour of the plant as a thank you.
The second just as interesting , in a compost bin. Successfully retrieved them both and both passed onto other Beekeepers

The first one looks more like a puddle than a swarm

James

 

[Curly green finger's]

Look viable or not ?

 

[MrMouse]

Inspected my growing apiary today:

2 double brood national hives now firing on all cylinders. Appear to have had a bit of a brood break but now lots of frames laid up with eggs.
Each with a single super after I took my spring crop. Already being filled with nectar and frames being drawn out (I checkerboarded extracted frames and foundation).

2x 3 frame nucs and 1 6 frame nuc I made out of a box I’d demareed. Used the cells that they drew at this point. All a bit of a gamble and an experiment and I did not have high hopes. But, looks successful!
1. Lots of eggs, found and marked the queen
2. A few eggs, not a huge number but single eggs so hoping this is a successfully mated queen - we will see. Couldn’t see the queen but didn't spend long looking.
3. I think I saw three laid up cells but on dark comb and the sun had gone behind a cloud. Unsure which way this one will go but lots of polished cells so hopefully I’ll go back in a week and find them all laid up.

It’s only been 3 weeks since I made the splits so it was probably a premature peak anyway!

All in all, feeling pleased with how things are going. Bramble will hopefully be opening in the next 7-10 days.

 

[alancooper]

Extracted four supers of clear dandelion honey (great tasting brown semi-gelatinous) as part of my Spring harvest. Created four five frame nucs as swarm prevention. A great season so far. Double brood box Qs starting to slow down laying.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Extracted four supers of clear dandelion honey

I’m down to my last 15lb bucket. It goes like hot cakes. Mine is yellow though.

 

[Swarm]

View attachment 40219View attachment 40220
Look viable or not ?

Let you know in a day or two I have one a little similar.

 

[gregior]

Took the last of the spring honey off, could maybe have taken a bit more but weather looks cr@p for the next week at least so left some on them. Got 17 supers from 25 hives so not great. Lets hope the Summer flow steps up.

 

[madasafish]

Had the all clear from the Bee Inspector who went through with me all my 24 hives/nucs in two and a half hours on Monday morning. One hive had a false positive EFB field test which the lab test ruled out this am.
Much relieved.. but logic suggested the one cell involved was unlikely to be infected as the nuc it was in was the product of splitting two nucs which were EFB free on inspection.

 

[alancooper]

I’m down to my last 15lb bucket. It goes like hot cakes. Mine is yellow though.

Shall we agree on yellowish-brown? Q

 

[alancooper]

I’m down to my last 15lb bucket. It goes like hot cakes. Mine is yellow though.

Shall we agree on yellowish-brown? (maybe with a hint
of green

 

[Swarm]

Let you know in a day or two I have one a little similar.

She emerged yesterday
A visit to check three Amm mating nucs and all queens seen and laying. I plan to return later with some syrup to feed the nucs as there is nothing coming in at the moment, only the odd Bramble flower here and there and currently raining.

 

[Fellstoflats]

A nice swarm from a friend's feral colony.

 

[Superlativesoul]

Checked my hives in my garden today ,saw queen cells which were capped ,and took them out .Thought I would open the capped queen cell to find nothing inside .Is this a usual occurance or are the bees playing with me
John

 

[Wilco]

Checked my hives in my garden today ,saw queen cells which were capped ,and took them out .Thought I would open the capped queen cell to find nothing inside .Is this a usual occurance or are the bees playing with me
John

They can re-seal them once a queen has emerged.

 

[The Poot]

Had a hunch that bees coming into my garage and nosing around was a precursor to a colony swarming.
Donned suit went to the hives and found two bait hives being investigated.

Went through H5 and found them queenless - no eggs, no larvae, no queen, but good tempered. Gave them a test frame from H4 which has the best temperament currently.
Then on finding queen cells in H4, I spent well over half an hour hunting for the unmarked queen, who was found lurking in the bottom box.
Nuc’d the queen on her frame, added two frames of brood, one frame of food and shook in three frames of bees from a super.
Broke queen cells down to one and boxed everything up fitting a clearer board under the top super.

This is the third colony to make swarm preps so far, out of four. The one that hasn’t, has probably gone drone layer and I’ll be checking them tomorrow.

 

[E&MBees]

Had a hunch that bees coming into my garage and nosing around was a precursor to a colony swarming.
Donned suit went to the hives and found two bait hives being investigated.

Went through H5 and found them queenless - no eggs, no larvae, no queen, but good tempered. Gave them a test frame from H4 which has the best temperament currently.
Then on finding queen cells in H4, I spent well over half an hour hunting for the unmarked queen, who was found lurking in the bottom box.
Nuc’d the queen on her frame, added two frames of brood, one frame of food and shook in three frames of bees from a super.
Broke queen cells down to one and boxed everything up fitting a clearer board under the top super.

This is the third colony to make swarm preps so far, out of four. The one that hasn’t, has probably gone drone layer and I’ll be checking them tomorrow.

It’s very comforting to know that I’m not the only beek who can take over half an hour playing hide and seek with a queen when an AS is required.

 

[Antipodes]

Checked my hives in my garden today ,saw queen cells which were capped ,and took them out .Thought I would open the capped queen cell to find nothing inside .Is this a usual occurance or are the bees playing with me
John

They are not playing with you until they seal a worker bee inside.

 

[Nannysbees]

Inspection on all five hives today. Very little stores in all of them except in psycho hive( does have a new laying queen) Huge amount of drones in that hive!!! ( Is that normal????)
We inspected tinker, lucky we did as they hadn't eaten the fondant on one side of the cage so she was still stuck in there, let her out, she disappeared down a frame. The United hives doing well. All queen right, all laying bit still dry supers!!

Two varroa found on two drone larvae, should I treat??????