What did you do in the Apiary today?

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Put loads of supers on (finally!) as the bees are piling the nectar in and back filling the brood boxes. Saw one nice new queen in my out apiary hive that swarmed but no eggs yet so gently closed up and left her to it. Definitely mated as nice and fat. That’s two locally mated queens so far with one in the home hive successfully mated and laying her socks off despite my poor penmanship!
Checked the hive that I split last week to knock down any more EQCs - there were quite a few and I managed to cut out a lovely big one. Took it home and put her in a mini mating nuc with a nice cupful of bees and block of fondant.



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I had another look at the colony where the SBI said she'd found a charged queen cell on Thursday (which we agreed to knock down given that we'd seen the queen, there were eggs, and I would be inspecting again today), but if they've drawn more then I can't find them so I left the queen where she was. There were loads of play cups, but nothing that looked remotely ready to lay in. Took me a while to find any eggs, but I think that might just have been the light as I did eventually find a patch of comb that had been laid up. I'm not completely happy that I understand the state of the colony though, so hopefully next week's inspection will clarify things.

James
 
I had another look at the colony where the SBI said she'd found a charged queen cell on Thursday (which we agreed to knock down given that we'd seen the queen, there were eggs, and I would be inspecting again today), but if they've drawn more then I can't find them so I left the queen where she was. There were loads of play cups, but nothing that looked remotely ready to lay in. Took me a while to find any eggs, but I think that might just have been the light as I did eventually find a patch of comb that had been laid up. I'm not completely happy that I understand the state of the colony though, so hopefully next week's inspection will clarify things.

James
I had the exact same situation today…a single charged cell. I knocked it down and wondered if I’d done right…I feel better about it having read this. I’ll check again in a few days.
 
Yes, I'd say so. It sounds like the bees are putting the honey in the top brood box. I suspect that your one very good hive probably has an excellent number of bees in it (perhaps more than the others), and they are of the right age too. It may have got through a larger number of brood cycles in time to capture the flow better. You're in Southern Michigan obviously, but Gaylord, a fair way north of you, has been very wet. Have you noticed anything in particular about the weather in Southern Michigan that might have caused an issue? I see you're up over 90 degrees and then nicely in the 80's after that, so it's a good temperature at the moment at least.

Northern Michigan
https://www.weather.gov/media/apx/climate/2024SpringClimateSummary.pdf
Our weather in Southern Michigan has been more dry than wet like the conditions up north. Crops like Corn, Potatoes, Soy Beans, Carrots, Watermelon, Seed Corn, and other fruits and vegetables are all being irrigated if possible. Anything unirrigated is stressed. We have rain in the forecast and I think the conditions should let up. I suppose the recent weather may have reduced some of the clover nectar yields. Otherwise it has been sunny and nice!
 
The sun has finally arrived in Norfolk and the bees are really going for it suddenly. Last week I checked the hives and on average they were 5kg down on the week before and I was starting to think about feeding some of them, this week they are on average 15kg up on last weeks weights! One has increased by 29kg in 7 days... It helps that they are right next to a cluster of Lime in full bloom, but even so, wow! Need to get more supers on pronto...:cool:
 
I got a phone call from a lady panicking saying I have a swarm of bees in my mother's duvet ! I thought gosh how have they got there ? I was thinking bedroom window flung open.
Got my kit together and off I went. Couldn't help but smile when she ushered me into the back garden.
There hanging over a washing line was a duvet including the cover.
The lady in her 70's had hung her Mums duvet on the line to air and a swarm came and thought nice space lol.
I'm just back and I'm exhausted. Swarm now in a nuc box just !
I've been brushing stray bees from inside the cover.
As I was driving home down a narrow country lane, I saw an animal on the side of the road. There was a fully grown badger ambling along the road !! He was not in a hurry. I stopped the car car and watched him. Magical end to the day. New swarm collected and a badger sighting. :D
 
Our weather in Southern Michigan has been more dry than wet like the conditions up north. Crops like Corn, Potatoes, Soy Beans, Carrots, Watermelon, Seed Corn, and other fruits and vegetables are all being irrigated if possible. Anything unirrigated is stressed. We have rain in the forecast and I think the conditions should let up. I suppose the recent weather may have reduced some of the clover nectar yields. Otherwise it has been sunny and nice!
Dry soli always seems bad for nectar here, so I'm guessing probably there too. We are now into our eighth month of below average rainfall, and there has been robbing here at my home apiary each month of it and it continues now into June (our winter), which is amazing. The last significant drought here was in 1979, 80 and 81.
Like that drought, trees have been killed in large numbers on north (sunny) facing hills where there are shallow soils. This is a photo I took as an example of a hillside of dead eucalyptus trees, which are evergreen and generally very hardy. They have been killed by the drought, and unlike if a fire had gone through (being fire adapted), they don't recover. I think this upcoming season will be particularly challenging here with such forage gone and if it continues to remain dry.
 

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Eucalyptus use a lot of water compared to other species so I guess that makes them drought susceptible.
Yes, and they are an explosion waiting to happen when there is a fire. Perhaps they are like a camel and drink up water when they can?

What has happened here recently is that under stress, the trees defences are down and then they get attacked by insects. These photos show leaves of the Tasmanian Eucalyptus Globulus (Blue Gum- our floral emblem) which is the main one they have planted overseas. The eucalyptus gall wasp, which is only 1mm long, has attacked them severely when in their weakened state. I've never seen that before. Apparently you get the double whammy of drought and then pests.
 

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I remember in Ethiopia they were trying to discourage planting of it because even though it grows fast it is too thirsty.
not just Ethiopia - the scourge of eucalyptus is a blight on many sub Saharan countries
 
Apparently eucalyptus is used to make some cheaper grades of plywood. I wasn't aware of that until recently.

James
The English came to Tasmania originally to get the eucalyptus trees for boat building as you’d run out of decent trees over there. Beat the French to them.
 
Checked 7 colonies. All very busy in the lovely warm weather. Stores level was variable, bramble is now in flower which should help. 2 colonies had single charged QC in the middle of frames so have left them to do what they want.
 
Took a while to go though demaree stack consisting of 2 National BB and 7 supers. !

Want to undo demaree I started mid-May but allowed QC to emerge in top to make another colony from best hive. Still no eggs or brood in top but not sure whether VQ is still there. Soon will be unviable tho'. ?

Not trying this way of making increase again. Will move QC to nuc next time.
 
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Want to undo demaree I started mid-May but allowed QC to emerge in top to make another colony from best hive. Still no eggs or brood in top but not sure whether VQ is still there. Soon will be unviable tho'. ?

Not trying this way of making increase again. Will move QC to nuc next time.
If emerged end of May you may still find she starts laying soon.
 

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