What did you do in the Apiary today?

[Curly green finger's]

Vaped some colony’s both single brood and nucs this morning all but one nuc got well pxxxed off first time I’ve had guard bees come at me like that, had the thought oh yeah this queen is getting squished, but an hour later I stood by them gloveless and put my hand near the entrance bees were just flying around my hand landing on my fingers and going inside, so was it the vaping? Time of day was 10am plenty of bees coming back with gorse and ivy pollen.

The adjacent nucs were vaped the same and 6 others.

 

[The Poot]

Results of first vape. After 48 hours.
View attachment IMG_6196.MOV

 

[Swarm]

Finally found my apidea queen laying A little over a month after hatching from an emergency cell raised in an apidea. I was about to go and unite the colony today so a late reprieve. Now we will roll the dice on if they get through winter ok. The colony has been Q- for months and I've topped up with the odd donation of brood. They have done a good job of filling up both sides of a frame full of pollen so fingers crossed they will go for it in the next 10 days of lovely weather forecast.

She's a beauty.

 

[Andy]

She's a beauty.

Yeah, I'm pleased she started laying properly in the end. One of the darkest I got this year. She was a proper pain as she flew back to the apidea once (luckily I hadn't packed it away yet) and was a proper runner whilst trying to handle her. Took ages to lay as well. She laid 4 eggs in the apidea and called it a day !?

 

[Swarm]

Vaping today and wasps taking advantage of any chance, doing the nucs meant removing the feeders to vape via modified roofs and they were on them in seconds, desperate to find something.

 

[Swarm]

Yeah, I'm pleased she started laying properly in the end. One of the darkest I got this year. She was a proper pain as she flew back to the apidea once (luckily I hadn't packed it away yet) and was a proper runner whilst trying to handle her. Took ages to lay as well. She laid 4 eggs in the apidea and called it a day !?

I had a bit of fun a couple of years ago with what I thought was a failed nuc, I waited seven weeks and was so convinced they had no queen that I went to the apiary with a view to shaking them out. So convinced that I only did a cursory scan of the frames, yep, still the same and moved the box and began shaking out. I walked over to their old position to see if the bees were making their way into the adjacent hive and who did I find on the stand wondering where her home had gone? An embarrassed, closer inspection revealed a small patch of fresh eggs on one frame.
All ended happily.

 

[lindsay s]

Yeah, I'm pleased she started laying properly in the end. One of the darkest I got this year. She was a proper pain as she flew back to the apidea once (luckily I hadn't packed it away yet) and was a proper runner whilst trying to handle her. Took ages to lay as well. She laid 4 eggs in the apidea and called it a day !?

What size of hive are you overwintering her in, the apidea, a nuc or something else?

 

[Andy]

They were in a full hive but I've reduced them to a 6 frame nuc. About 3 seams of bees at the moment. I've given them lots of drawn comb which was a wonderful moment when I realised I could do it for the first time. So they have a whole frame of pollen both sides and a few fully loaded honey stores and the one she seems to be laying in. They filled up the other empty frame with syrup. I think they will need a bit of nannying so when they have finished with taking down the syrup I plan on sticking another box on top with fondant and cover that with insulation. I've got the Abelo nuc with some spare brood boxes which is quite handy.

 

[Wilco]

Got to an apiary I'd not got to for a couple of weeks. A mini mating nuc had starved. A real tragedy as I think I missed it by a couple of days at most. Occasional bee still present but most starved, piles of them and wall to wall brood with a beautiful pattern. Bit rubbish really.

 

[plain_hunt]

Not strictly in the apiary, but eating these, I remarked “they remind me of chalkbrood” and was told I need to get out more!
Kalmykia arachidowe - or peanut pebbles.

 

[Antipodes]

Not strictly in the apiary, but eating these, I remarked “they remind me of chalkbrood” and was told I need to get out more!
Kalmykia arachidowe - or peanut pebbles.

Yeah, the fungus has definitely sporulated on a few of them

 

[lindsay s]

These questions are for you Antipodes.
1 Are there many commercial beekeepers in Tasmania who work with predominantly AMM bees.
2 Are the AMM bees used for foraging for leatherwood.
3 Any idea what percentage of Tasmania's bees are AMM.
Thanks

 

[Paul_Ward1]

Did an OAV (2g / single brood) with the new Sublimox 2 days ago and got a big forced mite drop (board was alarmingly covered). This was 5 days after 3 sequential OAVs with the gasvap and very little mite drop. Is it a reasonable to do another 2 at 5 day intervals with the Sublimox (and accept that I didn’t get the gasvap technique correct)?

 

[Penninetrader]

I'm hoping to move a 5 over 5 frame colony to a single BB while the bees are busy with the ivy.

Not done the following before but . . .have taken 5 frames from across 3 hives and done a newspaper unite on top of a 5 frame nuc, queen started laying end of August, ie. 2+ weeks ago.
Thinking, leave them a week to get to know each other then move to standard BB and feed (but I don't have a spare floor or a crown board or a roof yet!)
Might work. ?

#edit The added issue you have is 4 or 5 frames that won't fit in a BB. Could they be shared with other colonies.

If the issue is super frames transferring to a deep it is no problem at all , they love to hang comb below the frame

 

[Penninetrader]

Some of us are members of The Scottish Native Honey Bee Society and they tested samples from a number of colonies here in 2019 as part of a bigger survey which was funded. A lot of samples came back as having AMM traits but were hybrids and at the other end of the scale some were 93-94%pure AMM. I don’t know of the full picture as the results were kept confidential. My mentor actively sourced AMM queens and bred his own strain of bees here from the seventies till about two thousand. He supplied a lot of beginners with bees in that time and there’s a high chance that his strain is still present here.
The last major import of bees to here was in 2002 when a beekeeper sourced 80 colonies of dark bees from the Inverness area which was varroa free at the time. Since then we have been trying to maintain our varroa free status by encouraging beekeepers not to take colonies in and to only source local bees. There’s slightly more than 150 colonies here now but I don’t know the exact number.
Some of us have nearly pure AMM and hybrids in the same apiaries which leads to the question “why haven’t the AMM become hybrids in all of this time”
My theory and it’s only a theory is that the AMM bees are managing to mate with each other in our cooler climate when the hybrids are not out in the same numbers.
My tin hat is on and I'm prepared to be shot down in flames

I had read that the native AMM genes with subsequent generations increasingly dominate. Tis the reason I imagine that commersial keepers and others have to rely on imported genetics rather than supersedure or in house breeding in order to keep a maneagle workforce . My guess is that the feral and kept gene pool of mating drones has more influence than most attribute. I have today released an AMM queen into a colony of young bees, she was supplied to me by someone whose girls tested 94%. I am not overly concerned a few percent either way. My way of releasing was a little unorthodox and done on the spare of the moment, I did take into account her movement in the cage, weater conditions and my girls reaction to the release of an attendant. The anttendant did not fly she just mingled without issue and the queen slid unnoticed between the frames she had been sat atop. The cage got all the attention as i moved it a few frames over. She had been in the box 5 days. My supplier was more than a little concerned at this approach but we shall see, fingers crossed my girls are kind.I will give it a few days before having a look for her.

 

[Nannysbees]

Removed the apiguard yesterday from the hives, left it until the evening so the wasps had gone. So difficult deciding if they are a good weight. All have had a feed but very aware the ivy flow has started.
Weighed the hives using a bar which goes under the base and lifted from the back with a hand held digital scales with and without the lids

Poppy db 10.07 with lid 11.76

Tinker sb 7.52 with lid 10.62

Daisy sb 8.44 with lid 10.41

Rosie db 12.64 with lid 15.25

Win db 11.92 with lid 13.46

 

[rolande]

These questions are for you Antipodes.
1 Are there many commercial beekeepers in Tasmania who work with predominantly AMM bees.
2 Are the AMM bees used for foraging for leatherwood.
3 Any idea what percentage of Tasmania's bees are AMM.
Thanks

@lindsay s , without wanting to jump on @Antipodes toes on this one you may find the following interview with Leigh Slater about his attempts to preserve Amm in Tasmania interesting. The same channel also has a Willie Robson/black bee interview:

 

[lindsay s]

@lindsay s , without wanting to jump on @Antipodes toes on this one you may find the following interview with Leigh Slater about his attempts to preserve Amm in Tasmania interesting. The same channel also has a Willie Robson/black bee interview:

Thanks for that. I just heading off to work so I will watch it later.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Did an OAV (2g / single brood) with the new Sublimox 2 days ago and got a big forced mite drop (board was alarmingly covered). This was 5 days after 3 sequential OAVs with the gasvap and very little mite drop. Is it a reasonable to do another 2 at 5 day intervals with the Sublimox (and accept that I didn’t get the gasvap technique correct)?

I would continue with another couple of vapes @ 5 day intervals- do your first and then count, it sounds like you’ve either had brood emerging which would of hit the mites from the cells or your gas vape didn’t work which I’m surprised about.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Did an OAV (2g / single brood) with the new Sublimox 2 days ago and got a big forced mite drop (board was alarmingly covered). This was 5 days after 3 sequential OAVs with the gasvap and very little mite drop. Is it a reasonable to do another 2 at 5 day intervals with the Sublimox (and accept that I didn’t get the gasvap technique correct)?

Have you other hives? What are the drops there like?
I have one out of seven continuing to drop large numbers
I’m vaping every five days till I get only a few. I once had to do one seven times….. years ago, before I gave up and put in Apivar which led to none dropping at all. I guess the seventh one did it.