What did you do in the Apiary today?

Colony no.1 - inspected 10 days ago and full of bias and a couple of play cups. Now swarmed (grrr) so removed the 2 sealed qc and left a single open one.

Colony no.2 - Did have a limping, paint splattered q that swarmed! Now has newly laying q, but didn't spot her.

So that's two newly mated q's from AS hives that have swarmed. Please tell me it's not like this every year!?! Only positive is that the my virgin q's seem to get mated and begin laying in no time.

Plenty of forage around this year, just a struggle keeping hold of the foragers!

All entrance blocks in, removed one supper bursting with sealed honey and now patiently waiting for the girls to do the same with the remaining 16 supers on my hives.

painted three hive stands.

Put copper tape around legs of stand, latest downpour have brought out hungry slugs & snails.

Tried new strategy to find and mark a queen whom I could see occasionally but who would disappear. Very dark and difficult to see through glasses and dark veil..(I am v longsighted).

Waited till 1pm today: nice and sunny. T shirt and shorts, no veil . Could see clearly and most foragers out. Found her on third frame I inspect, and marked her a fetching dayglo orange.. Success! (eventually).

So nice I continued as dressed.. loverrrrrly. Bees very laid back...

Did not use smoker once. No stings.

Wish all beekeeping days were as peaceful...

Had very angry defensive bees so I watched them for a while.
Bloody wasps .
Made entrances as small as I dare and put a wasp trap out.
Also noticed my hive at home had bees doing some strange cleaning behaviour at the entrance.
Those too were being probed by wasps and any bee that touched a wasp was cleaned by the others before being let in the hive.

my swarmed A/S the other day seems to have taken the move well,foragers out in force in that colony
the swarm I nuc ed on Tuesday have 5 brood frames drawn and 3 super frames drawn and semi filled already,wish they all worked that quick,should be ready to re hive next week
made note to make more 5 frame nuc supers,the extra space definitely helps especially with a full frame of winter stores to start them off
test frame produced q cells so added that frame to nuc to rear and combined with the big hive(now 3 bb and 3 supers)thatll be fun to inspect
all the rest checked for laying and storage space and now im off on my holidays

Added another super

M

Hachi said:

All entrance blocks in, removed one supper bursting with sealed honey and now patiently waiting for the girls to do the same with the remaining 16 supers on my hives.

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i remember someone saying they had a tough time getting any honey

As neither of my big colonies had swarm cells last w/e I decided it's no longer necessary to do a 7 day inspection and remove all the (heavy) honey boxes to inspect the brood box for Q cells......

Tried to get as many inspections in as possible - been ten or eleven days since the last lot, all the home hives I checked were fine - the ones I took some supers off for extracting had two empty supers to fill, although one will be needing another in a few days time - another queen mated and laying like a good un - only three hives left now to check for matings - I'll leave them until the end of the week. Zipped up for an evening inspection at the carreg apiary, one hive which was a nuc whose queen mated about four or five weeks ago, first super put on week last Friday now nearly out of space so a second super put on. another - queen introduced to nuc on 8/6 now has a third super. The other two, which were younger nucs will probably need a super next week. I've noticed that, although only a couple of miles away there is a lot more bramble blossom up there than at home now - and more to come. A good point to remember for next year especially as there's room there for countless more hives. Depending on what time I get back from the Royal Welsh tomorrow I may get down to check on Garn Cottage.

Enjoy the show, JBM - let us know how it's looking.

Pratfall of the year

Time for my entry for the above competition.


A few weeks ago I found out that one of the hives on the Cathedral roof, had high levels of nosema. So, I removed the supers and did a Bailey comb exchange.

Last Friday, with nearly all the brood hatched from the original BB, I removed it.
To prevent robbing, especially by wasps, I moved the BB off the roof and into the old office below which we use as our store/workshop. Never occurred to me that this office, being enclosed and south facing, windows on 3 sides, gets rather hot.

Now, those of you still paying attention will have noticed that I referred to "nearly all the brood" having hatched.

So this morning, the old Cathedral archivist, who has ancient records stored in strange places, wheezed his way up the narrow, stone spiral staircase to the office just below the roof..................


Please can I collect my award at next year's Convention?




Dusty

Quick check through. Both colonies happy enough, not bringing in much at present. One appears to be a bit short on pollen so I'm planning on giving a quick slab of Neopoll.

I have a suspicion that one of my colonies is Q- The colony has been happy enough for the 6 weeks post swarm on 6 June. I've seen polished cells on my inspections on 5th July and 12th July, but on 19th the colony was decidedly different in temperament, bit cranky, and I felt there were no polished cells anymore and def no eggs. So I have taken a frame of eggs from the next door hive as a test frame - we shall see.
I also managed to make sure I didn't take HMQ on the frame of eggs..... but it was a close shave!

bontbee said:

Enjoy the show, JBM - let us know how it's looking.

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good turnout at the honey show but no luck for me this year - apart from a third in the wax cake section - result as I didn't think it was up to standard and as I didn't have time to melt it down and filter it I wasn't going to field it but sai b*gger it when I got there! (think I'd got first if I had re-filtered it)
Dissappointing at the standard of judging though this year. Chatting to the judge's steward and he was frustrated at the fact he was more concerned about the jars than what was inside. One class ws not awarded any prizes even though the exhibits seem to be of a good standard (another judge - there as a competitior and steward this year actually rated mine a possible first although I agree nothing good enough for third) I had also omited to enter a second smaller cake of wax and my chunk honey so maybe I could have got more.
Redwood's dark honey didn't get a sniff - my feeling is the judge was not prepared to reckognise any honey unless it was actually black as he only gave first and third to the tarry ones - nothing for the slightly lighter ones!
Good day though - spent all morning talking bees in Africa and what a good but weird season it's been so far.

Laz said:

Put copper tape around legs of stand, latest downpour have brought out hungry slugs & snails.

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Can you report back and let us know if it works.

I have a slug problem with my hives, had thought about using copper tape either on the floor or on the stand, but never actually got round to it.

BeeJoyful said:

Can you report back and let us know if it works.

I have a slug problem with my hives, had thought about using copper tape either on the floor or on the stand, but never actually got round to it.

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Sorry BJ ...Slugs - they have to die... short term slug pellets, longer term home made slug nematodes. Snails ... I pick them up and transfer them (undercover at night when walking the dog late) to a neighbours prize hostas (he complained about my musician son playing Bach on the piano last summer, in the afternoon, with the french doors open and he lives at least 100 yds away - Philistine !). The snails may die at his hands but they have a great last meal ... and I get the last laugh ...The dog cocks his leg on his stupid wicket fence as well !

We've done the eggshells, we've done the coffee grounds, but with no real impact because there's always a heavy dew and they can slither straight over the top. Tried oats and bran, but the birds ate it. Tried nematodes, but didn't work in the soil, only in tubs. Tried beer traps, but were overwhelmed in just one night. Won't use pellets because of other wildlife. Some luck with creosote substitute on hive stand legs, but it wears off after a couple of months weathering.

There are too many slugs, too many damp places for them to live and breed, so we have to live with them and try to persuade them to keep away from certain places, and a honey super is not the right place for a slug!

Not so many snails in the garden though, thanks to the thrushes.

BeeJoyful said:

We've done the eggshells, we've done the coffee grounds, but with no real impact because there's always a heavy dew and they can slither straight over the top. Tried oats and bran, but the birds ate it. Tried nematodes, but didn't work in the soil, only in tubs. Tried beer traps, but were overwhelmed in just one night. Won't use pellets because of other wildlife. Some luck with creosote substitute on hive stand legs, but it wears off after a couple of months weathering.

There are too many slugs, too many damp places for them to live and breed, so we have to live with them and try to persuade them to keep away from certain places, and a honey super is not the right place for a slug!

Not so many snails in the garden though, thanks to the thrushes.

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If you put the pellets under a cover of some sort - I have a seed tray with a broken bit out of the side - the slugs tend to get under it and die there, horrible mess but the birds can't get at the pellets or the corpses. I use this method at the allotment and it seems to work - shovel the remains into the compost bin and move the tray to a different spot every few days.

The home made nematodes I use everywhere but you have to keep renewing them ... difficult to be certain how effective they are as I have a real slug and snail issue ... really hard to keep on top of it.