What did you do in the Apiary today?

[nosmoking]

With the help of forum member 'Mike a' (cheers Mike) we inspected my bees in the top bar hive. Everything looking good. Brood & stores. On Mike's advice I will start feeding 2-1 this week. Great 30 minutes. Happy days!

 

[Headnavigator]

Cheers folks - I'm looking for a supply of intact pallets for constructing a compost heap...

That's what we did, you'll need a roll of chicken-wire to line it if you're using the pallets intact, we just stapled it in. Wasn't able to scrounge that though! Best compost heap we've ever had.

 

[TOBY-3652]

Fetched last 2 hives back home going 2 treat with apiguard 2 morrow

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Watched the bees working hard bringing in nectar and pollen, the air seemed to be full of fast moving golden specks.Went to my friend's father's cottage five miles away to agree a spot in his orchard for one (or maybe two) of my hives for next year. great remote spot next to a stream, 20 yards from the car and loads of dwellings with good sized gardens half a mile away in all directions from South East through to North.Noe got to plan more hives for the other three out apiaries I've been offered!

 

[Chris Luck]

Started removing top supers.

Chris

 

[YorkshireBees]

Removed 4 supers tonight and placed the clearing boards on 3 more hives!

Not so much honey in the supers I took off tonight but then again they were all new colonies or swarms this year so not too disappointed. However the weight of the supers on the hives that I have just started clearing seems a lot more hopeful.

The 3 hives I started feeding yesterday had licked the rapid feeders clean!

Just waiting for my sugar mountain to arrive tomorrow morning to feed the rest.

 

[drstitson]

only indirectly bee related - tried first batch of honey biscuits ahead of our assoc honey show next week - turned out ok for first go. just need to make sure i have all my necessary gear in my weekday digs to churn out show quality ones next week.

should be less effort to produce a decent batch of 10 to enter than for my NHS 1st placed biscotti last year - several batches made - 128 in total - these were then whittled down to a final dozen (6 perfect with 6 in reserve in case of breakages in flight).

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Investigated state of three different feeders I left on the weekend. Ashworth going great guns, and will be empty in a couple of days. Smaller Rapid feeder empty as expected and topped up. Green Maisy not really touched and with a few drowned bees - not assuming the lack of interest the fault of the feeder though.

 

[psafloyd]

That's what we did, you'll need a roll of chicken-wire to line it if you're using the pallets intact, we just stapled it in. Wasn't able to scrounge that though! Best compost heap we've ever had.

What do you need the chicken wire for? I've never used it and my pallet bins haven't suffered.

 

[drstitson]

there are pallets and then there are pallets - nice tight boards will be fine but i suppose cheapo pallets with big spaces between boards could possibly do with a bit of containment assistance. cardboard or carpet will do just as well and help insulate.

 

[madasafish]

Full inspection of all colonies yesterday *. Started feeding 2:1 syrup.

* except warres: took roofs off, looked, put roofs back on.

Lots of brood and stores altho' stores abit light.
Cut grass this am - nice and sunny - lots of orange pollen and white pollen and HB coming in: and should keep through until the first frosts ...

 

[kazmcc]

Full inspection, I was planning on seeing if I needed to be fed, but boy.....they've been busy! They are packed with capped stores all over the deep and shallow brood! She still has room to lay though. She has slowed down and we have 5 1/2 frames of brood in the deep brood and part of two frames in the shallow. Everything else is capped stores, except for one frame at the back of the hive, which they never seem to touch.

Is this good? This is my first year alone, so I'm not sure how many frames of brood is good at this time of year.

 

[drstitson]

hi kaz

"except for one frame at the back of the hive, which they never seem to touch."

swap it to the front comes to mind.

 

[Chris Luck]

Is this good? This is my first year alone, so I'm not sure how many frames of brood is good at this time of year.

I would say as good as it gets or as near as anyone could wish for and one frame not used isn't really unusual, your choice whether to move or leave alone perhaps until spring.

Chris

 

[iball]

I extracted 6 supers (60 frames) last Monday giving about 130 pounds.

Ian

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Inspected all hives - done a bit of shuffling anound in the main hive, so I've taken nine frames of half drawn but empty shallows and one quarter filled away so hopefyully they'll finish off the others - I'll give them the quarter filled one back with the extracted frames later this month, queen seems to have slowed right down on her laying (more than i expected), probably because there wasn't much drawn comb when I finally got her back down in the brood box.
Marked my first queen and would have marked the other but the plunger end fell off and she scuttled away to hide somewhere so I'll try again next time.
Still loads of foraging going on around here.

Top tip - make sure cap is on queen marking pen before 'shaking well' - lucky it's a white year!!

 

[keithgrimes]

went up to check on my bees on the Ling. One super drawn filled and capped in 16 days. Pretty happy with that but my bees get very bad tempered on the heather.

 

[drstitson]

At moment sitting waiting on a skype update on a small swarm that the missus is currently chasing.

 

[witchcraft]

Queen seems to have slowed right down on her laying (more than i expected).

One of mine seems to have stopped laying altogether - I'm planning to stick a test frame in - but as there is absolutely no evidence of queen cells used, full or otherwise, I'm guessing the queen and colony have decided this jumbo sized bunch of bees is too big and are planning on sliming down for autumn/winter. The weather over the last ten days has been rubbish too. I just hope I'm right...

 

[drstitson]

OH lost sight of the bees - sounds odd to me - 1-2 hundred large noisy bees in a column near ground level looking a bit purposeless.

could it be a load of drones having followed a queen who has fallen after mating OR given our topography, just a load of drones high up (25m+) over the open fields that have ended up heading into the summit of our mountain?