Recent content by rayt

Nice in the sun but the wind has a bit of bite in it here in Suffolk. Loads of OSR flowering near me and one hive has filled up a fondant container with comb in a day. Loads of drones in the hive too.

I have a field of OSR next to garden this year. In the space of one warm day the flowers have appeared and the bees decided comb was to be built in the fondant feeder.

3 frames I removed showing evidence of dysentry.

There's not much at the entrance but some on the frames.

Had a check yesterday and one of my hives appears to be Queenless, no brood or eggs, some drones, 6/7 seams of bees and either dysentery or nosema. My other 2 hives don't have much brood and combining will spread the dysentery/nosema. Question is what to do with them? Is it worth cutting out a...

I often wonder how many of the swarms lured into bait hives actually belong to the very same beekeeper despite the claims of 'catching someone elses bees' and 'swarms are attracted to my apiary because it smells of bees'. Coincidence my ar*e.

Or I could do a 3 frame split with the sealed QC as further insurance.

Thanks Snelgrove. That was sort of my thoughts but possibly not expressed so clearly. I'll try and get that queen cell broken down tomorrow but the weather is not looking good.

I was thinking along the line of the queen cell was open at the side which seems to point towards a virgin being killed in the cell. But what confused me was the small new fully sealed queen cell. Ive left it for now so will wait and see. Thanks

Queen cell looks like the end is open and the side has been chewed away. Was fully sealed 3 days ago so I removed the queen into a nuc split. Thought maybe I have missed a queen cell which has hatched and done its job on the one pictured or have the workers torn it down? But then I found...

If its a cast swarm how long from hiving it would you give her majesty to start laying, 3 weeks?

Being a inexperienced (and stupid) beekeeper I find it helpful to mark it out on a queen lifecycle to help understand whats happening or could happen. If its capped then I would say leave it until after its emerged which is around day 16 just to see if the qc has been opened. Day 27ish to 37ish...

10th - Queen and some brood/bees removed to a nuc and placed on another stand. Removed all QC's except one with larvae and jelly in the original hive. 16th - QC not capped. Stupidly I tore down 3 emergency cells before actually checking the previously selected QC otherwise I could have used one...

Spotted a decent sized queen cell with larvae and jelly on 10th at midday and knocked down any others. (also did AS/split) Inspected on the 16th and cell not sealed. Have I selected a dud as it should have been sealed after 5 days? Or should I check again in a day or two just to be 100% its...

Ok thanks for the advice. Plan is to move the hive tonight. Tomorrow afternoon (working during day) add the remaining foundation and leave for a week. I'm next to masses of OSR so feeding probably not needed?