18th and 25th April

I’m slacking again. I have no excuse, I’m not even busy haha.

18th April I found 8 Queen cells! Mostly on the new eggy frame but there were some on the others. I knocked all down but 1 and will go back on Thurs to see if any more were made. Basically the idea is to knock down more before the left one hatches, to prevent competition and swarming. (I did this and found none on the Thursday, so this is now shut up for 3 weeks). I also took the Queen excluder off to try and encourage them to draw the super frames as I’m a bit worried that they’re filling the brood frames with honey. I hope she has space to lay.

Hive 2 is pottering along, still quite small but there is a seen Queen and she’s laying like thunder. Doesn’t seem to have missed the frame of brood. Also removed the Queen excluder from here.

25th April – had another look in the supers – hive 1 was not drawing them out (trick of the light) but hive 2 has started. Annabel suggested putting another super on hive 1 to encourage them to move the stores up so I took a partially drawn super from hive 2 and put it in hive 1, put the new super under the old one and the Queen excluder back on. I hope they will use it as I want them to. I can check the supers but I can’t open the brood chamber for 3 weeks.

Hive 2 has expanded, I’ve opened the door more for them so hopefully that will help them get in and out. I also juggled the frames around so she has more laying space – interestingly she’s laying from the middle towards the front, so a lot of the frames towards the back are being ignored, so I’ve moved the brood back a bit. No Queen cells but some play cups, however these aren’t polished, charged or even on a brood frame so I think they’re just messing with me. I’ve put the Queen excluder and another super on hive 2 as well, on the basis that they were more likely to draw out the frames on the hive than in my house.

Overall very pleased, I have at least 1 Queen and hive 1 is as under control as possible.

Plan for next week, check hive 2 as per usual, leave hive 1 alone. Will check supers in a fortnight.

 

 

A corvid drama in 6 parts

“And if anyone has any reason why these two cannot be joined in holy matrimony, please speak now…”

“I do, you blaggard! Take my fiancée will you?” “Oh no!”

“I have a sword and I’m not afraid to use it!” “Oh no!”

“Run away!” “Unprepared are we?! Coward! Face me like a man.. Er.. Corvid!”

“Justice prevails!”

“So heroic! I’ve always loved you! 😍”

Fin

*Standing ovation*

Sat 11th April

Spent 3 hours on a blistering hot hillside today rummaging through hives. I went to hive 1 first and found it thrumming with bees. They were very noisy and boisterous and kept bouncing off me and I was glad I didn’t get stung. There were about 5 likely Queen cells scattered over the 3 frames of brood so I called Annabel. She asked for pictures and assumed it was swarm cells, so I attempted to start the artificial swarm process, but was hindered by the fact that there wasn’t a lot of brood and I couldn’t find any eggs or the Queen. Bah. I suspect I may have squished her – there were grubs of various ages but no Queen, and I checked several times, very thoroughly.

So I took a frame of eggs out of hive 2, which is happily pottering along with a seen Queen so very happy with that one!

Will go next weekend and see – if there are Queen cells on the frame I put in then there’s no queen. If there are cells on other frames then there is a Queen and I’ll have another go at swarming.

Overall I don’t think there is a Queen present in hive 1 – bees tend to get more boisterous without a Queen, she’s not been shy in the past and there were definitely no eggs, I spent a long time making sure! I’m annoyed that I may have squished her but there’s no helping it now, all I can do is wait and see.

Notes from Annabel:

When you think the bees are swarming, do an even split with equal frames of brood and food in both hive and nuc.

In the nuc you want at least 2 frames of older brood (the comb looks darker), the Queen, no Queen cells, a couple of frames of food and shake a couple of frames of bees into it.

Knock down to one charged Queen cell with a nice fat grub. Leave for a week then check back. The Queen cell in the hive should be sealed and no more should be made – if they are, knock them down.

If you can’t find the Queen split the hive so there are eggs in both the nuc and the hive, follow above but knock down all Queen cells and then check in a week’s time to see where the Queen cells appear – where ever there are Queen cells there is no Queen.

As I couldn’t find the Queen or eggs, Annabel suggested moving a frame of eggs from hive 2 into hive 1 and check in 7 days. If I can’t move a frame then knock down all Queen cells and check in 3/4 days, however I could move a frame which helped.

7th April

I went to the apairy at lunch today and accidentally took 2 hours. Didn’t see either Queen but both hives were buzzing! I did a very thorough check of each frame but probably should have been more focused on the hives too.

Hive 1 is the stronger of the two and had about 3 frames of brood consisting of eggs to fat larvae which indicates there is a laying queen. I moved some frames around to give her more layigg space and left the super on so there should be loads of space. She’s actually got more room than I thought – only the top of the frames were full of food so she’s not quite as swarm imminent as I worried she was! Saw a play cup but nothing else.

Hive 2 is much smaller, there were at least 3 frames that were completely empty but there is a lot of pollen going in and a couple of frames of brood of various stages so that’s good. I left the super on that one too.

No obvious signs of disease or anything obviously amiss which is great! Will be starting weekly checks soon.

The only think I need to keep an eye on is, one of the hives appears to have been attacked by a woodpecker. Will check it next time and see if it’s happened again, and then look into chicken wire.

Bees 2020

So here I am in April 2020. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and I’m fretting.

Over the winter I moved my two hives from the club apairy to my own out apairy with Eric’s help. He knows the landowners who are a lovely couple and the site was previously used for bees before so it’s very promising. Downside is it’s in a field on a hillside so it’s rather exposed, and I’d rather it was in my back garden so I didn’t have to cart around a bunch of kit but you can’t have it all.

So back to where I am. I did a very brief check a few weeks ago and am happy to confirm there are Queens in both hives! So that’s a good thing. Hive 1 was very full of stores while hive 2 had less. I was concerned about hive 1, but Eric felt it was fine and just suggested putting a super on, which I went back and did. However I now really need to check on them both to do a full check – check frames, stores, disease etc. I spoke to Annabel who suggested I swap out a couple of frames for completely new, which honestly is what I thought Eric would suggest, but hey ho what do I know? I was planning on visiting Sunday but its been windy so have postponed until tomorrow, on Annabel’s advice. 

It doesn’t really matter tbh, due to this virus going round I’m not in work anyway so I can nip out whenever. I think I’m just worried it’s going to snowball into a Big Thing and I’m not sure I can manage spending the year running frantically to catch up again. Still, I think I’ve got everything I need, nearly – I wanted to visit my dad and see about getting an eke made for my nucs but that’s not happened due to the lockdown so I’ve bought a second nuc. I hope it arrives soon, despite theoretically it being too early for swarms I’ve heard rumours of Queen cells so am taking extra kit with a view to doing a swarm if I need to. I just hope the more fill hive is coping OK.

 

Some other things to update on. Phil, my original mentor, finally got the apairy sorted and then suddenly passed away which was very disconcerting for all involved (selfish as it sounds I’d just arranged to move my hives then got word he’d died).

 

The club has also moved to new premises, so my bees went to the new place and overwintered there. Turns out bee life doesn’t stop in September, which annoyed me because I booked things thinking I was done and missed a load of stuff – September is a bit approximate because the weather is staying warmer longer so the bee year carries on a bit. Both hives had their full apiguard treatment and also an oxalic acid smoke treatment in Dec, I need to figure out which to go for, the smoking seems much easier that apiguard but I guess we will see.

4th and 11th August

4th august

Had to open the apiary today as Eric wasn’t around, but Annabel pretty much led it. Nothing particularly notable today, couldn’t find either queen but someone is laying so that’s great.

14th August

Much better today despite the fact that it rained mid session. I have a mentor allocated now, Phil, who’s super nice but still hasn’t seen the bloke about the apiary yet so still waiting on that. It’s getting a bit more urgent now as I may have to move out the club a lot sooner than I thought, but it’s all good. Starting to run out of bee year now, which is pretty wild – only got visits until the end of September. Although the weather is starting to get more autumnal now which frankly I love – I’m naturally a cold weather, snug-up-in-a-blanket kinda gal so I dunno what to do with all this hot weather.

So yes, got my super back (another member picked it up thinking it was his, need to double check things are named but luckily that was initialled so I got it back quicker). Its starting to get to varroa treatment time now so put an apigard pad on hive 1 – it is a soaked pad that comes in a tin that looks like pet food. You tear off the top (keep the lid because you need the serial number to refer back to if you sell the honey, I don’t need to worry about that this year) then pop the whole thing upside down either over the holes in the crownboard (according to Phil) or directly over the brood (according to Jamie). I went with the latter on the logic that it sounds a bit like bleach down the toilet – the bees hate it and chuck most of it out the front of the hive, in doing so covering themselves in it, and killing the mites. But it you leave it too far away from the bees they’ll just ignore it so it won’t do its job, which sounds reasonable.

I’m also pleased to announce that hive 1 has a queen! She’s now marked green and clipped, she’s a skinny little thing but there are eggs and worker brood in there so no need to worry. Note to self because I missed this, drone brood is bumped up cells rather than flatter and biscuit coloured. If you have a drone layer, it’ll all be drone brood. It’s just another thing to look for when doing the checks, so at the moment we are checking for:

* is there enough food? I should be counting frames but I don’t atm

* is there enough brood? Not sure how many I need but seems to be, a reasonable 50/50 of both is reasonable. Any more either way by more than a couple of frames needs keeping an eye on.

* is there a good variation of brood? So worker and drone, and are they of varying ages? Can you see eggs, small brood, fat brood, covered cells?

* check generally for any sign of waxmoth, disease or notable problems.

* if you spot her ladyship, all to the good. Now both are marked this should be a lot easier.

 

Hive 2s a bit slow to get off the ground: there’s more than a few frames that haven’t been drawn out let alone filled, so we’ve fed them. This is probably because they were in a nuc and I opted to expand them in case they needed the space. But I spotted her ladyship here, and she’s doing alright, just has a lot of space to fill. Will keep an eye on them.

Phils checking them for me for the next fortnight as I’m off. I need to talk to him about overwintering and extra kit.

 

21st July

Busy day but very productive. I took one of the hives to the apiary because it wasn’t done and the apiary manager wanted his hive back, and frankly I needed the boost. Together with my friends the hive was joined together so the base, eke and brood box are now clipped together, the boxes were burnt and rails were installed.

David C did a talk on preparing honey for extraction, but truthfully I don’t remember a lot of it. We looked at a honey refractometer which shows the amount of water in the honey. You can’t sell honey that’s more than 18% water, I think. Or is it just 20%? I dunno, I’ll worry when I get honey. The other useful tip was, have spare supers and review your crown boards – also useful to have spares of these so you can sandwich a full super between crown boards and stop the bees robbing the honey.

On to my bees, we moved the hive over but still no sign of Queen or brood/eggs. Suspect there is no queen so managed to get one from another keeper who had a laying queen go spare. Fingers crossed the hive accepts her. Otherwise, the hive works well and it looks like they settled in pretty quick, so that’s good too. I checked the nuc, found the Queen. I really want to move them into a hive, and have managed to collect all the bits to complete hive 2 to action this. Downside is, I’m helping at a show on Sunday so won’t be at the apiary, however Jonathan has offered to move them so will find out soon!

14th July

The local bee inspector came this week to look at some hives and she looked at mine. The nuc is good, some varroa but nothing to worry about. This was interesting as I wasn’t aware of some of the symptoms of varroa – deformed wings and runty bees are both signs which is interesting. I suppose its logical really, the varroa is a mite that sucks blood and transmits disease so their victims would be in worse health than non varroa bees.

Downside of the nuc was that the previous owner had cut a hole in the back, which could be used as an entrance point. We blocked it up with some pipe insulation foam but it’s not ideal. Not entirely sure how best to proceed with this, obviously everyone will do it differently but I wish there was a simple way that you could deviate from later. Honestly this stressed me out so much I got a bit weepy, that and the hive still needs work and I just don’t have the time! Bah.

I’ve put a super on the hive, and could probably do with putting some blank foundation frames in there. There’s no sign of a Queen so will have to look at that next week too, bah. I’ll likely have to put in a test frame if there isn’t any sign of a queen to see if they make a queen. I’m sure it’ll all work out but I feel stressed about it. Take a step back girl, worse happens they die and you collect a Swarm next year.

Notes from the talk;

If it looks like an acorn cup it’s a play cup. It it’s straight and fresher it’s likely a Swarm cup

Don’t put blank foundation in the middle of the hive – splits the brood so the queen can’t get to the other side and they think there’s no queen

 

After I followed Jamie home and got a tour. He made up my frames and supplied a couple of supers which now need cleaning. Bah. I need to sort my life out

 

 

 

 

Castellations needed for super

Can use frames for about 3 years – can date them

 

 

7th July

Apiary manager wasn’t here this week so I stood in. Took hot water and milk, remembered all my kit (which was good because I was only one of about 3 people with a smoker) and opened up. I marked the hives that needed attention and helped Annabel collect drones for her talk on clipping and marking Queens. Not a lot of people showed which was both helpful, in the sense that we weren’t overrun, and not, in the sense that there were more cake and drones than we needed, plus more work for those who attended to do!

Annabel’s talk was interesting, and I practised clipping and marking a drone (poor thing). I understand why it’s a contentious issue but at this point I’ve got enough to worry about without invisible Queens swarming! So until I get better I will be clipping and marking. My Queen is already both.

Found the Queen in the nuc and remarked her (red) but no clear evidence of one in the hive – one qc and no eggs etc, so will leave it for a few weeks. I’d like to move the nuc into a hive but that means I need a useable hive! Working on it.

One of the hives was dead, not one of mine. Saw evidence of wax moth (dusty cobwebs and a clearly eaten trail through the comb) and there was just a handful of bees in there, with no obvious Queen. We emptied them into the hedge and took the nuc away, hopefully they will find a new home elsewhere.

As of now, most of the hives pieces are assembled, primed and painted with layer 1. Plan for tonight is to finish painting and install pins on the floor/eke and eke/brood box, as I figure those are the ones I’m likely to have the most issue with. Also look at replacing the rails in the brood box and supers, and make some frames. Might even toast the inside of something just for practise.

I also have more feeders to clean! But I hope now the weather has improved will be petering out now.

This Sunday is the bee safari, where we meet the local inspector and she inspects hives. I was going to go to the club and one other, but actually I don’t think I will, I want to move my bees out of the nuc and also would like a break (to update my cv and work on this owl I’m making for my pregnant friend).

I need to take the hot water and clean feeders, need to clean my veil and pack that and the suit and my hive tool and smoker, need to clean my wellies ideally (just a wipe) but otherwise, it’s starting to come together! 🤞

30th June 2019

Spent the morning cleaning feeders I hadn’t done yet because it’s been a stupidly busy week. Didn’t do the worlds best job, I cannot get propolis off for love nor money, although I’ve not tried the rubbing alcohol yet. Hot water melts it off kinda but it smears, and cold water chills it and you can chip it off, but this only seems to really work if you can soak it, and these feeders are too large to soak. Still, they’re no longer mouldy.

Because of this, I forgot my veil and my headband! So it was windy and my hair got everywhere. Bah!

Bees in the nuc are thriving, it looks like the Queen is in there which is fab (I found eggs but not the Queen). Me and Phil transferred them over into my nuc so that’s half done. Would be good to make sure the Queen is actually in there, and maybe look at transferring them into a hive at some point.

Bees in the other hive do not appear to have a Queen, but are still docile which is nice. No eggs but a fair bit of brood. A LOT of Queen cells, which is good actually as by the sounds of it, most of the club needed Re-Queening, so I was very popular yesterday! It looks like the bees in the hive have no Queen, so they’re making a new one, which I imagine is what they’d do in the nuc if the Queen wasn’t in there. There’s a lot of stores in there too, so I didn’t feed them (but did feed the nuc), plus the weather is looking up so with luck there should be plenty of food coming in.

I spent some time sanding and painting yesterday, I’m about half painted with the primer. I also went to Maisemore on Saturday for their yearly sale – absolutely heaving so glad I got there when I did as apparently they were out of frames by 8.30 (opened at 8).

 

Busy weekend! Looks like it’ll continue too