What did you do in the Apiary today?

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removed supers and extracted them and put some back on for refilling. :)
Moved a couple of colonies to different apiaries.
 
Dealt with the bees from hell today,not as aggressive as they lost a few hundred warriors yesterday judging by the amount of stings on my clothes and the bellows of the smoker
Checked a small swarm in a nuc,I'm useless at spotting queens unless they walk across the middle of the frame but this thing was on the first frame with eggs.It was the biggest queen I've ever seen,,she had legs like a foal and was so lazy I could have marked her freehand on the frame,let's hope she lays faster than she walks
 
Extracted 200lbs of honey and returned empty supers
Checked some nucs which are being delivered to York tomorrow
Marked some queens
Collected 300 new jars ready for bottling
Off to meet beginner to mark his queens after a 3 way split 6 weeks ago
No rest for the wicked...........
 
Inspected all mine today.They have been treading water since my last inspection 7 days ago due to the bad weather no doubt.All queens are laying well and hives are well populated.

We've had loads of rain recently and the willowherb and balsam are looking very healthy and should be out in the next couple of weeks-all we need now is some decent weather!
Spotted a few bees with dwv but the mite numbers are pretty low so will not be treating them yet.

Something that caught my eye was the huge amount of stored pollen the hives have,one of them had 4 deep frames filled on both sides with stored pollen,never seen so much.Hopefully this means they can concentrate on collecting nectar for the rest of the summer:D
 
Dealt with the bees from hell today,not as aggressive as they lost a few hundred warriors yesterday judging by the amount of stings on my clothes and the bellows of the smoker
Checked a small swarm in a nuc,I'm useless at spotting queens unless they walk across the middle of the frame but this thing was on the first frame with eggs.It was the biggest queen I've ever seen,,she had legs like a foal and was so lazy I could have marked her freehand on the frame,let's hope she lays faster than she walks

:)
 
Extracted 30 lbs honey - one lang super.

TBH swarmed again - cross combed so finding QCs is difficult. Collected swarm (actually large cast) from top of same tree prior swarm went to. Within an hour they had returned to original hive. Punched fresh lot od cells. Inspected hives. Nasty hive was requeened two weeks ago and is better but decided to sting me on fingers and climb up trouser legs as I was holding a brood frame. Gave up at that point.
 
Inspected all mine today.They have been treading water since my last inspection 7 days ago due to the bad weather no doubt.All queens are laying well and hives are well populated.

We've had loads of rain recently and the willowherb and balsam are looking very healthy and should be out in the next couple of weeks-all we need now is some decent weather!
Spotted a few bees with dwv but the mite numbers are pretty low so will not be treating them yet.

Something that caught my eye was the huge amount of stored pollen the hives have,one of them had 4 deep frames filled on both sides with stored pollen,never seen so much.Hopefully this means they can concentrate on collecting nectar for the rest of the summer:D

Same here. Here's hoping.
 
I went to hunt out my mean queen. Shut entrance. Strapped and gaffer taped the hive. Blinking heavy. One broodbox plus rose super. Moved hive away and left a box for foragers. Did other stuff for an hour. Went back to nasties for the queen hunt. Found four QC plus fresh eggs but can't find queen. Ended up dumping them in a box with two brood frames. QE on then frames above. Will go back tmrw to see if there's a queen between the two frames.

Not happy. But no stings and they were nowhere near as bad as usual.
 
Hived swarm - managed to catch the quickest queen I have seen and mark/clip her.
She's a beauty, big and chubby and laying well. :)

Hived Nuc - couldnt find her majesty - again, no QCs so closed up for next time. :-(
 
Hoping the weather improves later as my new carniolan queen arrived yesterday. She is going into the langstroth/Flowhive...since they keep mucking about making queen cells. I hope I have made them queenless...but going in today to find out. If not then I will make up a nuc for her.
Also need to check the Aga queen to make sure she is ok and released.
I'm hoping that all the colonies will settle down to collecting some nectar during the rest of the summer.....or at the very least feed themselves. So far they have all managed to make some spring stores.
 
Yesterday, watch my supersedure queen come back from a mating flight for the second time in three days. She has got a lot fatter, but still not seen a queen come back with an appendage.
 
Two days ago I posted I don't expect any more swarm preps from my hives!,today I'm up a blackthorn tree
Oh yeah I've got this game Sussed alright
 
Beastly bees! They killed my Aga queen....she was an innocent! I thought they were queenless....they aren't a big colony....only about 3 seams of bees. Anyway....now they have nothing...no eggs. So we will now wait and see how they like that! I expect there is a tiny elusive queen swanning about ...there used to be a lovely black queen in there but haven't seen her for ages so I though she had got lost whilst getting mated but I suppose she might be lurking in there. They have nothing to make a queen out of now. So someone needs to get a wriggle on and lay some eggs...
I wanted to put my new carniolan queen in the langstroth/flow hive but am now far too fearful of them killing her after seeing the matricidal colony.
We searched through....they had made a few queen cells on the only frame which had brood/ eggs. I took those down....so they should be hopelessly queenless...but I don't trust them. I will leave them a bit longer and then give them a frame. If they make queen cells...then I guess it will be safe to introduce her.
In the meantime....we made a nuc for her.
 
squished a drone laying queen (bad mating from a late April Queen cell side AS) split the remaining bees into three nucs of three frames each and added to each Nuc a 14 day queen cell graphed last weekend, fed a pint or two of Ambrosia
 
Two days ago I posted I don't expect any more swarm preps from my hives!,today I'm up a blackthorn tree
Oh yeah I've got this game Sussed alright

Ooo....blackthorn...ouchy!
I am rapidly learning to expect...the unexpected.
My bees were very wicked...they waited until I closed the hive up...having shown how much they liked my Aga queen....but they were eyeing her up for torture! They are sneaky....they better get on with being bees cos they won't get given anymore queens from me!
 
Watched one of our hives swarming, I did actually get hold of the queen as she left the hive, I though I was holding her a little too hard so I loosened my grip and she flew off. They only flew about 10 yards away so I left them to settle then put them into a Poly Nuc (14x12) and a super, it was a large swarm. A little bit gutted as they were doing so well, thats what happens when you leave an inspection a few days longer. On the bright side at least I managed to gather them all in.
 
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