What did you do in the Apiary today?

Ben90 said:

Saw a wasp land on the top bars and immediately get mobbed and killed by the bees during an inspection. Got a photo of it too!

Click to expand...

Great picture! 1 down, 200 million to go!

kazmcc said:

Great picture! 1 down, 200 million to go!

Click to expand...

Was quite surprised how quickly they jumped on the wasp and killed it too. One of them must have stung it because it quickly curled up paralysed and stopped moving its limbs after a few seconds. The hive reeked of alarm pheromone after though and I had to close them up because they were clearly agitated after dealing with the wasp.

A direct hit? When mine were attacked by wasps it looked to me that the wasps took a few stings from my bees, but it didn't slow them down any. Just horrible! Hopefully yours was a scout and any more visits were nipped in the bud

Checked the colony into which I had put a test frame last week - a nice plump QC in evidence so that answered that question! Have prepared the recipient Q+ colony next door with newspaper on an QEx and will put Q- brood box on top this evening in my first ever uniting attempt.

Thought I'd found a use for the P****s poly feeder that I had found lethal to bees, and today I put it on a hive with well drained cappings in both sides for them to clean off.
Judging from the activity around after a few minutes it was not such a good idea - I reckon even with what seems like a fitting roof it's about as beetight as a chain-link fence. Hmmm.

Usual association apiary day - just me and Redwood again but fortunately only four students so a pleasant morning finding newly mated queens laying like trains, marking two green queens and hiving a nuc in Soweto (another part of the apiary where the 'feral beekeeper' keeps his hives and gets in the way of everyone else using it for temporary accommodation or for making increase at the teaching apiary) checked a few of the home hives - re-marked a couple of red queens put more supers on and tidied up the hedge which was slowly starting to encroach on my hive inspection space.

Ben90 said:

Saw a wasp land on the top bars and immediately get mobbed and killed by the bees during an inspection. Got a photo of it too!

Click to expand...

Great photo Ben - and well done for A) knowing where your phone/camera was and B) being able to use it while wearing your bee-gear......

There are two big plum trees right next to my hives so we are a bit of a wasp magnet, I haven't seen any.....yet !

richard

Full inspection of all my hives.

Moved a good sized nuc into a full BB.

Decided my "miracle" hive is now doomed as their numbers are now dwlinding, no bias since March 31st and despite having numerous QC's and test frames

All my hives that have swarmed have new Q's laying like trains

Still looking for an out apiary despite some initial promising offers

watched a follower bee sting a guy in shorts trying to hook his caravan up.
i told him not to flail his arms around but he didn't listen.

Spent about 45 minutes last night trying to find and clip a queen in 3 medium Langstroth boxes. Loads of eggs and larvae, and the bees very calm, but no sighting of the queen.
Frustrating.

Learnt that Fireweed and Rosebay Willowherb are one and the same. Who knew...

Took another strong nuc off Buckybeast. A bit late, but I am making lots of drones and the weather is fine. Put it on the site of my combined Q- nucs to get some flyers in.

All good; last pre-ivy crop trickling in and pretty well ready to be removed.

TryingToLetThemBee said:

Learnt that Fireweed and Rosebay Willowherb are one and the same. Who knew...

Click to expand...

Anyone who watched the documentary about how weeds dominated the bombed out areas in WW2 London and how they did the seed tests dropping seeds to see how far they'd go.
Don't know what it was called but it was good.

The honey in the first super is almost fully capped now. The second is filling up well and the third is already in use.

The queen still seems to be laying at full speed. I had read that she should be slowing down by now so that the hive doesn't have too many bees going into winter but she seems to have other ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iad1MQ0BUew

Well, yesterday actually. Extracted first three supers and harvested first attempt at cut comb. Both seem very successful. Bees had produced beautiful examples of cut comb, capped right up to edges. All weighed up properly, as will be selling through our village shop this year!

Cappings have gone in a bucket with vodka. Very pleased with result: really clean capping to produce something else and rather drinkable honey vodka (though too early in morning to truly appreciate it - maybe wait till 10am).

So, round one over. Another 2 or 3 in a week or two hopefully.

What to make with cappings? Better get reading Hedgerow Pete's sticky...

Saw pollen going into Saturday's nuc. Made me happy.

My bees are on a major flow again; who knows what. Great as I am woring on nucs. Saturday's is running out of space! (Might have over-egged that one...). Please tell me every year is going to be like this...

Weather so poor in the south west of France now having to start feeding the bees . Cold ,wet and windy , what a summer , or lack of one .

Disaster! supplier cancelled my extractor order - nil stock after telling me he would have some.

Just ordered a new Waspbane. Seen a steady stream of hornets visiting my pond last few days, first time in a few years. Caught loads of them in the Waspbane then.

Extracted all day, ran out of buckets to put the honey in. Learnt three things. I need a bigger extractor and plastic frames and the heat gun make extraction so much easier. Definitely pleased with the Langstroth polyhive with plastic frames.