What did you do in the Apiary today?

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I put clear crown boards on last week so today's fondant level check was easy..roof of quick look and back on again..no disturbance to the bees at all..my supposedly Queen minus colony still has me in a pickle..it still has a small cluster of bees in there even through this vile weather..
I am fairly good at spotting Queens and my last look a few weeks ago when i first suspected a problem left me with a Queen - colony..but looking at them today from above has me 50/50 yet again and i do not want to open them up again..

(Quote from a mentally ill patient my lady friend used to care for)..

We will see...Say we will see..;)
 
At last, calm air! By 11am a great deal of flying and mustard-yellow pollen brought home. Gorse and Willow around here in quantity. Lots of dancing bees too which I hope are the first of this season's generations. I had decided it was time for a good tub-full of syrup in a rapid feeder rather than more fondant. I have only one rapid feeder so it will do the rounds of the four colonies through this week. I put it on the biggest colony first but then discovered that another one seemed more needy of feed, so I returned at 4.30 to remove, top up, and give to the needy colony. It was about one third taken down in four hours by that first colony.

My practice is not to use smoke if I am not lifting out frames, so I have not yet had my puffer with me this year. Lovely how calm the bees are. I am sure they are calmer in this new and much sunnier apiary than the two venues I was using last season. Bit of objection to me lifting out the rapid feeder though! Very soon over.

Oh and removed my winter insulation from over the crown boards.
 
Why take the insulation off if you dont need to, they are in as much need of it now as mid Winter. The warmer it is the larger brood are they can maintain
 
Tom Jay said:
At last, calm air! By 11am a great deal of flying and mustard-yellow pollen brought home. Gorse and Willow around here in quantity. Lots of dancing bees too which I hope are the first of this season's generations. I had decided it was time for a good tub-full of syrup in a rapid feeder rather than more fondant. I have only one rapid feeder so it will do the rounds of the four colonies through this week. I put it on the biggest colony first but then discovered that another one seemed more needy of feed, so I returned at 4.30 to remove, top up, and give to the needy colony. It was about one third taken down in four hours by that first colony.

My practice is not to use smoke if I am not lifting out frames, so I have not yet had my puffer with me this year. Lovely how calm the bees are. I am sure they are calmer in this new and much sunnier apiary than the two venues I was using last season. Bit of objection to me lifting out the rapid feeder though! Very soon over.

Oh and removed my winter insulation from over the crown boards.
Click to expand...
It's not over yet Tom.. even with this mild spell mine are still tightly knuckled down.. i will put money on it that the weather will turn for the worst mid April..as it has every year when lambing..Northumberland by the way but it covers a good area..;)
 
Timing of removal of insulation:
Thank you guys for prompting me to consider if removal of insulation yesterday was too soon. I've been working on the notion that the insulation is essentially for the period of the winter cluster. I have had rapid build up of brood doing this so far with my still-short beekeeping experience. Best case being a colony producing 80lb surplus and no swarm attempt that year.

Yesterday when I approached the hives at 11am there was a very audible ventilation hum going on inside them as well as all the flying. Knowing that this could not be for the purpose of reducing nectar yet, I came to the opinion that they were needing to cool the hive. I guess I was sensitive to this as I have never had such large numbers of bees overwintering in the case of two of my four colonies.

That was my thinking. I will later today consult my books about this. My own lecture notes say nothing about timing of removal of winter insulation even though in my head it is 'when the flowering redcurrant is in full bloom' which this week it is in these parts.
 
Tom Jay said:
Timing of removal of insulation:
Thank you guys for prompting me to consider if removal of insulation yesterday was too soon. I've been working on the notion that the insulation is essentially for the period of the winter cluster. I have had rapid build up of brood doing this so far with my still-short beekeeping experience. Best case being a colony producing 80lb surplus and no swarm attempt that year.

Yesterday when I approached the hives at 11am there was a very audible ventilation hum going on inside them as well as all the flying. Knowing that this could not be for the purpose of reducing nectar yet, I came to the opinion that they were needing to cool the hive. I guess I was sensitive to this as I have never had such large numbers of bees overwintering in the case of two of my four colonies.

That was my thinking. I will later today consult my books about this. My own lecture notes say nothing about timing of removal of winter insulation even though in my head it is 'when the flowering redcurrant is in full bloom' which this week it is in these parts.
Click to expand...


I NEVER remove my insulation: and had no issues with bees fanning to keep cool last summer at the height of the midday sun..... Mind you it was only about 30C so not that hot.. I also get very little mildew on combs overwinter...
 
Extra insulation( 25mm celotex) stays on all year round even on my polyhives .
2 new apiaries set up yesterday, just did a quick fly by and all colonies are out and about.
 
Tom Jay said:
Timing of removal of insulation:
Thank you guys for prompting me to consider if removal of insulation yesterday was too soon.
Click to expand...

I have 40 or 50mm of reticel insulation permanently fixed to the inside of all my hive roofs, no logic in removing it in the summer as it helps the hive avoid overheating.
 
I went around to have a quick check and top- up of fondant levels.
All my colonies survived and some are really looking very healthy in terms of numbers. Starting to get excited and anxious (for getting stung, haha) about the season.
 
Come home this afternoon to find my hives in the garden humming thought the wife was hovering in the garden, checked the inspection boards covered with brood cappings and willow pollen .
I noticed the damson are flowering as is the gorse, cherry ,blackthorn. the first bit of nectar i wonder???
 
Curly green fingers said:
Come home this afternoon to find my hives in the garden humming thought the wife was hovering in the garden, checked the inspection boards covered with brood cappings and willow pollen .
I noticed the damson are flowering as is the gorse, cherry ,blackthorn. the first bit of nectar i wonder???
Click to expand...

Lucky you, it only just stopped blowing and raining this afternoon up here. Warmer than it has been and the next couple of days look promising for a couple of hours at least. Stuff barely starting to green up.
 
Curly green fingers said:
Come home this afternoon to find my hives in the garden humming thought the wife was hovering in the garden, checked the inspection boards covered with brood cappings and willow pollen .
I noticed the damson are flowering as is the gorse, cherry ,blackthorn. the first bit of nectar i wonder???
Click to expand...



Bees were very busy today for me too, lots of pollen coming in and I managed to get the first hover (mow) of the garden done too ;)
They have made a start on the fondant so will be monitoring that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Checking things yesterday and found two hives and a nuc with lots of flying bees bringing loads of yellow pollen in and one hive with a few very lethargic bees. (Had been this way for a while). Decided to have a quick look in. About two seams of bees (at the most), a little drone brood on bottom of frames, some drones, no worker brood and no queen. Decided I had had a DLQ who (for whatever reason) was now dead. She was a 2017 queen who had headed a productive colony on double brood last year.
Considered the small colony to have virtually no chance of survival without intervention. Didn't want to unite with others - these were old bees with not long to live anyway, so decided to shake out in hope they begged entrance to one of other hives.
Shook into a gravel tray and watched. About half took to flight. A bit of knocking and rattling of the tray got the others into the air and the vast majority eventually made it into a didderent hive. No fighting at all.
Hoping this action will give a short boost of workers to the remaining colonies.
 
Its quite warm here today sunny Manchester. All 5 seem to be doing ok, bringing in loads of pollen, so many on 1 of the hives they struggling to get back in due to the small entrance, a lot clustering under the hive. I've not yet done any inspections this year.
 
Was asked about nucs today so pulled a frame to see where they are and the answer is although they look great the brood is not really there, it's just not warm enough yet. Back to exercising Patience.

PH
 
Removed the nadired ‘supers’ that I had left on in the autumn below the BB. All as clean as a whistle ready at some stage to go back on top for honey collection. Quite a few hives despite being strong had lots of dead bees on the OMG which they had not yet cleared. This explains my recent observation of loads of dead bees outside a string hive which puzzled me. The answer was just the bees bringing out their dead. I didn’t inspect any frames as didn’t want to cool any brood, will leave that for a future date.
 
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