Who's satisfied with the season so far?

[Cazza]

I am feeling contented this season as I have taken a reasonable early honey harvest and have bred some much more gentle stock.
Anybody else happy too?
Cazza

 

[For want of a better word]

I'm ecstatic with my isolated mating apiary...... Drone flooding the area with selected pure Cornish Amms and the assistance of other local beekeepers in keeping our endemic Cornish honey bee has paid off!

Yeghes da

 

[Goran]

At my microlocation..
Guilty.. So far three differrent forages and same extractions. Avg yield per colony as stationary above 40kg.
Queens are worriing me, I have to qrear but I can't get hols yet.. Struggling to have hols soon.

 

[Tremyfro]

I am really pleased so far.
I set out to increase my colonies...I started with 3 colonies. I wanted to make 6 nucs...some for increase..some for insurance for the coming winter and some for sale next spring. It didn't work out quite like that but I am still content.
I now have 5 colonies...one is quite small....3 nucs and sold 2 Nucs. If I all goes well..I will be able to put the 3 nucs into hives..to build up for the winter.
And still the rest of the summer to enjoy...perhaps with some more honey..who knows...I was lucky and had a spring crop...so can't be greedy. Oh yes...and a clean bill of health from the Bee Inspector.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I am having a decent season, going according to plan. Holding 3 main producing colonies together (one with a reunited A/S), on track for planned 30 kg per colony crop, and breeding my next-year queens (A/S helped). But can someone tell me it's OK to HATE this time of year (beeking-wise). A garden full of angry foragers, where once I had a couple of boxes of calm house bees, and nightmare inspections through piles of boxes (6, 6 and 5 deeps respectively) spewing clouds of angry bees, all boxes full of unsealed nectar/honey. Harder increase (I still need to breed from my Peter Little Q, one daughter having absconded from an Apidea and the other having gone MIA on a mating flight). etc. I HATE it. Am I alone?

 

[Jonathan]

Decent is all I can say. More swarms than normal but honey take thus far not bad. Having said that the nucs I obtained from Hivemaker last year continue to do exceptionally well which is the main reason for the ok position I am in. I have requeened many with daughters of HM's queens and they are also doing well. My existing stock not requeened are struggling.

 

[aberreef]

Been disappointing so far, the weather has been terrible around my apiary which is high in the hills. Started ok but the constant cold wind has help the bees back a lot. I've had quite a few queen cells fail to hatch too which I'm presuming is due to the cold.

 

[Obee1]

Surprisingly good. Started off in April with one big hive and now got 4 hives plus a nuc. Decided to go down the route of buying in good queens and seems to be working out ok. 3 colonies laying lots of brood and starting to look like high rise tower blocks. my captured swarm (4th colony) coming along nicely too. Went for a walk in park opposite yesterday and its a real bee feast with loads of forage for them. Added to that weather forecast great this week so should get some honey

 

[bpmurray]

Pretty poor - this time last year I had more honey in one hive than I have today in four. May was disasterous and they're only getting into their stride now. Fingers crossed, they'll catch up over the next few weeks - my hope is for one super per hive.

 

[enrico]

Awful....... Lime or nothing! But.... Gone from three hives to eight with swarms and artificial swarms.
E

 

[Fatbee]

Better for me but probably because have another year of experience of handling bees and knowing what I'm doing - not losing swarms helps for a start and got rid of two nasty queens and replacements much better. Reliant on OSR for early season honey crop

 

[idg]

Terrible season so far for me. Swarm fever in May followed by poor mating, followed by swarm fever in June!!
There is some crop on the hives but nothing capped.
Added to this I have two very aggressive hives which are not making things pleasant.
The only positive so far is that I don't think I have actually lost any bees.
I am near to Lime and Himalayan balsam so I am hopeful of a few supers. Fingers crossed.

 

[JWF]

Having lost my only colony over the winter the year started off pretty poorly for me. However, 2 swarms collected, one a prime with a big fat buckfast queen in it. One nearly full super already, just starting to be capped, loads of brood all looking very healthy. 2nd super to go one when i get chance later in the week, and also will most likely need to act to stop this colony swarming as there were 15 odd queen cups present when I went through the colony yesterday.

The virgin queen in the 2nd swarm had wing damage (presumably during collecting and rehiving the swarm) and was unable to do her mating flights, and disappeared. They raised a new queen from a frame of eggs courtesy of the other hive, and i also grafted a capped QC into a nuc at the same time.

I have seen these two new queens yet, but on inspection yesterday there's eggs from both, so it looks like they've successfully mated.

Presumably there won't be much honey of these two colonies, but the prime swarm is looking pretty lively

 

[Ely]

I have a 10l bucket full from spring so I can't complain too much I guess. Summer not looking too good though as the hives went queenless.

 

[YorkshireBees]

Spring crop disastrous compared with last couple of years!

Plenty of strong colonies awaiting summer flow (just starting I believe). So I'm reliant on my Summer crop which is a complete turn around on previous years!

 

[Obee1]

Surprisingly good. Started off in April with one big hive and now got 4 hives plus a nuc. Decided to go down the route of buying in good queens and seems to be working out ok. 3 colonies laying lots of brood and starting to look like high rise tower blocks. my captured swarm (4th colony) coming along nicely too. Went for a walk in park opposite yesterday and its a real bee feast with loads of forage for them. Added to that weather forecast great this week so should get some honey

Scrub that reply. Just found my 2015 buckfast queen lying dead at bottom of my hive then waited till 8pm to check on my unmated queen in nuc. She's not home. Bees fanning their butts in the air. Think she's lost. That's 2 queens lost out of 5. Woe is me.

 

[malx]

Not too bad. It's my first full season having managed to get the first colony through winter and managed to acquire two colonies a month ago.
Overwintered colony isn't too strong but I've requeened it so hoping it recovers..

Had 19lbs of honey from the strongest colony so far and hoping for more this summer.

It's certainly an interesting hobby that's for sure!

 

[richardbees]

Worst year I can remember for honey. The ground here in South London is bone dry, no rain forecast til w/e and the bloody Lime trees have started flowering early so probably no 'Lime flow'!.

Luckily I've still got a third of last year's crop in buckets so can keep regular customers supplied.....

 

[Tom Bick]

Looking really good with me and if the next few weeks go ok I will be very happy. Lost one swarm that was a bit annoying early on but since then only two hives Have wanted to swarm a good few of my hives are now extremely big and although the nectar flows apart from a couple of weeks in April have not been great the size of the colonies had made the most of what is available. The nectar is starting to pick up now and I am just trying to keep up with the supers and hoping that for the next few weeks the bees don't all decide to swarm at the same time. Will be making a start on this year's queen rearing soon so hoping that goes well.

 

[Jimmys Mum]

My season has been pretty good too, I think I am very lucky with my apiary locations although my Spring crop is always OSR based and people here all seem to prefer runny honey so selling my soft set is always a challenge!

Colonies have built up really well and only half have wanted to swarm this season. Think I must at last be becoming a better beekeeper The ones not AS'd have actually produced a bigger spring crop than last year

My queen rearing was a dismal failure though Tom! The queenless colony I put them into accepted about half the grafts and then when I went to take them out they had built them all into a sheet of comb! Not sure if they were still viable or not so decided to try again later this week with a different colony using a Cloake board instead. Fingers crossed.