todays news

[Trog]

I'm learning a lot about queen mating habits from this forum. Two more queens mated and laying today, four more to go!

[GRIZZLY]

Went through a colony today - 9 double sided frames of sealed brood,no eggs or unsealed larva and no sign of the queen.I decided to have a look at the one super on top of the colony and found a small patch of sealed brood plus eggs and unsealed larva.I carried on right through the whole box and found an unmarked queen on the last frame.I marked her then ran her back into the brood box.She was a large queen so how she got through the queen excluder is a bit of a mystery.Examination of the queen excluder showed no damaged or wide slots.This colony was the first swarm I collected this year and was a large prime one.All my neucs have mated queens showing decent patches of brood in all stages.Very pleasing considering the inconsistant weather we've been getting.

[GRIZZLY]

Heavens above but the bees are busy today!! I don't know what they are foraging but they are pouring in and out of the hives just as fast as they can. I can see a lot of evidence of working the Himalayan balsam but what else is flowering so prolifically I can’t see. Theres a fair bit of fireweed as well-but what else??

[gavin]

'xcuse me for tidying, but I though that I should fix your CAPS LOCK problem.

Mine at home were frenzied yesterday too. A smallish proportion were plastered with the white stripe of HB - might most be finding a way to get nectar from the balsam without getting that white stripe? I can't think what else is getting them excited, unless the ivy is producing too.

[gavin]

Bees can escape through the side opening. Do they go in that way too?

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=315&d=1282033528

(Interesting - I linked directly to a picture file already embedded in the site and you only seem to see it when you are logged in. There is a picture up there for those who have an SBAi account!)

In this thread:

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?271-Two-tone-bees

[Adam]

Gavin, I don't suppose you have ivy yet? It's not started this far south so far.
I've ben getting is some nectar thats really dark over the past week or two. Smells like smokey chocolate but tastes almost minty and quite strong. Not sure what it is ???

One of my hives has been getting in orange pollen for 2 or 3 weeks now. All the others in the apiary don't get it and are bringing in a little grey and light yellow pollen. Maybe one stock has long tongues?

[gavin]

I haven't checked our ivy yet but I seem to recall that it is no later than down south. You need warm days to get the ivy to secrete and we haven't had many of them.

Might your dark honey be honeydew?

Mine brought in a lot of orange pollen while the ragwort was flowering, almost over here now. One stained all its woodwork bright yellow with it. There will be various things available for them in suburbia - it is usually easier to be sure from pollen colour in the countryside where there are fewer pollen sources.

[Adam]

I'd wondered about honeydew for the dark stuff. Some of it is mixed with other honey in a 40 kg bucket. I hope it mellows with age as it's too strong for me! Maybe I can sell it as 'Premium Full Flavourder Honey" or it could be used as barbecue sauce.

Orange Ragwort pollen? Maybe However therer are lots of horses around here and horses and ragwort don't go together it seems.
http://www.horsedata.co.uk/Ragwort.htm

[GRIZZLY]

Is this weather ever going to improve?.Allright for you east coast boys with your sunshine and reasonable temperatures - we stalwarts in the west are having to cope with rain,dull cloud and high winds as well as quite cold.Dared'nt even think of lifting hive roofs at the moment.Jon must be similar in Belfast,

[Jon]

It is dire here. The garden has lying water in it but the bees are bringing in a lot of ivy pollen when the rain stops.

[Adam]

As an East Coast Boy, it's quite dry here - not much rain, but windy yesterday. A nuc blew over. It didn't come apart so I put it upright and made sure the bricks it was sitting on were level as they weren't before!

[Neils]

If it's any consolation it's peeing it down in Crete too.

[Jon]

Bet it's warmer than 4c though.

[Adam]

I hefted my hives last weekend. A couple were lighter than I remember and lifting off the roof, the crown boards of these were warm so there was significant brooding going on. One of these is a Carniolan type bee in my first polyhive. The other is a orangy bee - (so possibly some italian in there?) in a WBC (no insulation). I've never fed in November but I thought it warm enough that the bees would process it OK. As a result the WBC has consumed 6 litres of thick thymolated syrup this week. The polyhive less - about 3. Sisters of these queens seem to behaving properly and not brooding and consuming stores as far as I can tell. I also took the opportunity to poke some food into some mini-nucs which has gone too.

I woke last night at 1 AM feeling hot and walked downstairs - the temperature outside was 15.5 degrees as displayed on my outside thermometer. In November. Mad! It's far too warm; bees haven't decided to cluster yet and they are consuming stores but with little forage I think. A concern for later in the winter if they run out of stores.

[Jon]

Adam
My colonies are still full of brood and I have native type bees.
They are consuming lots of stores and bringing in loads of pollen.
I will have to keep a close eye on stores in January and February as some appear to be a bit light.

[Trog]

I'm worried about stores too. October was warm but wet so they weren't foraging but were quite likely raising brood. Today they were out in force, bringing in pollen from ivy and fuchsia. If it's still warm on Sunday I may take a look at a couple of colonies I'm worried about. We fed earlier than usual this year in case of early cold weather. Too late to feed syrup now, I feel. Will make up some candy for topping up stores later on.

[Jon]

I transferred two colonies in correx nucs on to open mesh floors today.
The first one was in a double decker correx contraption with 4 frames and a dummy on the ground floor and 7 frames up above.
This was two colonies I combined 3 weeks ago. All the bees had moved upstairs and there were 3 frames of brood mostly sealed.
I got them squeezed into 8 frames plus a 3 frame dummy in a national. It has about 25lbs of stores so should be fine.

The second one was a 7 frame nuc in a correx box at the association apiary. This one went into a similar box but with an open mesh floor.
It also had 3 frames of brood and I saw the marked queen during the brief transfer. I gave it 3k of fondant and put a rectangle of insulation on top of the roof.
The bees were flying strongly and bringing in ivy pollen with the temperature around 11c in the sunshine.

[Adam]

"The first one was in a double decker correx contraption with 4 frames and a dummy on the ground floor and 7 frames up above".
Is this a cue for you to get your new camera out and let us see the contraption?

[Jon]

It was just my standard correx box but with a cutaway roof and another with an open floor sitting above it.
I united then via a piece of mesh which had a small hole plugged by fondant. The queen was in the bottom box when I united them so the pheromones were wafting up for a couple of days through the mesh before the two lots combined. I removed the mesh when they were together.

[Bridget]

After three hard frosts and beautiful days I see lots of our bees are out and about. In fact I haven't seen them so busy since early September. Not suprising really considering the wet dreich weather we,ve had here. So I must remember to make a note in my wee book so this time next year I'm astonished that they are out and about! or maybe not.

[Adam]

The forecast for the weekend for me is 18 degrees and some sun.
Are my bees ever going to get some winter rest?

[kevboab]

Forecast for weekend here Adam is 13c. Was along hefting hives today and found drones only just being evicted from some colonies. This time last year those guys were long gone. Some colonies still have plenty stores but others are going to need fondant to get them through me thinks. Definately gonna need to keep an eye on them over winter if it ever arrives.

[Jon]

I still have drones in some colonies. They were flying on Sunday with the temperature around 11-12c.
I have fed more than I normally do but some colonies will still need a wee bit of fondant.
There is still ivy in bloom everywhere and pollen is coming in whenever there is a break in the rain.
I put a couple of kilos of fondant in a super above each of 4 apideas today.
They are on double apideas with the super of fondant on top so fingers crossed for getting some of them through the winter.
I have 4 more with virgin queens or failing queens which have no chance but these four look good at this point.

[Adam]

Had to pop home this morning to take an ill child to an appointment. My varroa damaged colony had a good number of bees doing orientation flights which I was pleased to see. :) It's about 6 weeks since some donor brood was given and varroa was under control so about right - 3 weeks as eggs/larvae and 3 weeks as young bees before flying.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?671-Varroa-damaged-colony

Returning home an hour later, all stocks were flying - there was a real buzz in the apiary. Sunny and 15 degrees. I was thinking it's about time for the mankini. A dirty yellow/orange pollen was being brought in plus nectar. A few drones were about too.
Father-in-law arrives and advises againt the mankini :(; he says that his Star of Bethlehem is in flower which usually flowers in the spring.

Jon, are your failing queens from this year or are they oldies? Is it worth combining if the weather holds warm for a few days? (I've never done it this late before and never considered it).

Kevboab. Where are you? There's no location shown on your posts.

[Jon]

The failing or unmated queens are in apideas just for observation purposes. I think I have done all the combining I am going to do this year, touch wood.

My mate Tim has built himself a rig to try instrumental insemination and I collected 35 drones for him outside one of my colonies earlier today.
I leaned a queen excluder against the front and picked them off as they returned. It was sunny and about 13c.
I also have a virgin queen for him from one of the apideas. I knew it would come in useful.
he can get a bit of practice in now rather than waiting until next May.

[gavin]

Nice to read of the technical advances being trialled in the Belfast area.

Don't think that we can match Adam's 15C (was 12C at the car at lunch) but the local bees were out in numbers for the ivy which still has visible nectar on the flowers. The drone flies often compete for space, but there were very few of them today. Maybe their season is over. Not so for a big butch Red Admiral which was sharing the ivy bonanza with the bees.

[Jon]

Mine were flying today like the do in summer. Bearding at the entrances.
It is making me a bit nervous as they must be consuming stores at a great rate with all the late brood rearing.
Are the other native bee people seeing this? Rosie, where have you disappeared to?

[Jimbo]

Hi Jon,

I can't comment as all my colonies are in out apairy's and I can only get to the bees on a Saturday or Sunday. Last Saturday was cold and they were not flying. Sunday we had freezing fog. The forcast for this weekend looks to be much better.

[Jon]

this weekend looks to be much better.

Same here, 14-15c predicted.
I have ended up with 4 colonies and 2 nucs behind the shed at the bottom of the garden so I always have a few close at hand to observe.
Keeping drones into November is unusual and I don't think it is indicative of a queen problem in my case.
I opened a colony 3 weeks ago which had drones flying and found it had 4 frames of good looking worker brood.

[kevboab]

Im in Central Scotland Adam.

Have started making more boxes for next season already using old scaffolding boards which my brother in law had laying around. There a tad crude but when costing nothing but a bit of time, screws and glue then i certainly cant complain. Same outer size as a national and they can hold 11 hoffman frames. A wee lick of paint and they'll be fine n dandy.

[kevboab]

Heres a wee pic of boxes. Meant to upload it with post. Sorry !!!

[Troutnabout]

They look heavy enough without being full of combs and honey:eek:

[GRIZZLY]

WHAT A NIGHT !!
Spent this morning restacking all my spare plastic hives,fortunately empty,which the wind had scattered around the garden.No damage at all to the boxes,lids and floors.Very robust units from Murray.Forecast is still more to come,so I must go round to the builders centre to get some REALY HEAVY blocks to stop future mayhem.Just shows what 90mph winds can do !!.

[gavin]

I'll see later whether the topped up weights on the polyhives at the association apiary were enough. Maybe not, there is a shortage of large blocks in the vicinty. I'm reluctant to go and pay for blocks, but maybe I should. They are certainly tough units these polystyrene boxes.

[susbees]

Something to be said for a good hefty log hive....

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

[GRIZZLY]

O.A'd the bees yesterday.All the neucs had good seams of bees.I gave all the neucs a 2 1/2 kg bag of Ambrosia fondant to get them over the worst of the coming freeze.The full colonies also looking good so far.Busy knocking new frames together but as our Ass'n meeting for Feb is a practical "How to put it all together" session I must save some for our new beginners to play with.I won't wax them until I intend to use them.Also got ten new supers to assemble to use with my new "Murray" Poly nationals.

[GRIZZLY]

Despite the very low temperatures some of the bees have been lured out by the bright sunlight and are flitting around the fronts of the hives.Interestingly enough it's the bees in the wooden hives that are active.Perhaps the extra insulation afforded by the poly hives stabilises the internal hive temperatures.

[Calum]

-5°C here all day, and -20°C tonight, bees have been about since before the ice age, I dont think they had poly hives back then.
Mine are quite happy, I installed a suggestions box and forms for them to fill in about complains and improvement oppertunities - the box is empty, they must be happy.

[GRIZZLY]

We have missed the snow so far down here and not too frosty.Still seeing the odd bee venturing out for a look see.Soon nip backinto the hive though.

[GRIZZLY]

All 18 colonies flying strongly and enjoying the sun and much warmer temperatures.Good to see all the activity - must keep an eye on the stores.

[Calum]

lucky you. -15°C today here, lovely sunny day tho. Finally winter is properly here! Hope it stays like this till March.

[Trog]

A sight for sore eyes today; all but 2 hives active (and living bees in the other two so maybe they preferred candy). Gorse and snowdrops flowering and lovely and sunny once the fog cleared.

[gavin]

I really look forward to seeing mine out on the snowdrops - but I doubt that it has been warm enough here yet.

[Neils]

Also in the news I notice:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16114890



Monitoring devices are being put in bee hives across Scotland as part of a project to keep an eye on their health.

The monitors record temperature and use a microphone to record the hum the bees make while working and resting.

Already the project has started to show the many different hums bees use to co-ordinate their work.

The project is also helping to work out which environmental forces and factors are behind the decline in bees and other pollinators.

...
Mr Evans is working with the Scottish Beekeepers Association, and the little black boxes are now sitting in about 70 hives across the region.

[GRIZZLY]

Also in the news I notice:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16114890

Have you got a little black box yet Gavin???

[Trog]

I have three, one of which is likely to give some interesting data. I suspect the rainfall monitor might be considered faulty, though, as the rainfall figures for Dec/Jan are literally unbelievable (except that they're backed up by my daily rainfall records)!

[gavin]

Have you got a little black box yet Gavin???

All I have is black marks against my name!

[gavin]

I have three, one of which is likely to give some interesting data.

Can I make some predictions?! Any good scientist will start with a hypothesis which he aims to corroborate or disprove. I have several and here are mine:

- when it is too cold, the bees don't go out
- when it is too wet, the bees don't go out
- when there are few flowers, bees hardly go out
- when there is a flow on, they are really busy
- in the wild west, bee colonies increase and decline more gracefully with the seasons
- in the arable east, bee colonies boom when they have super-abundant forage, such as pesticide-tainted oilseed rape or raspberry (as long as the soil has moisture and the weather is OK)
- when you stick nasties in the colony to kill other arthropods (mites), the bees don't like it
- .... but they are healthier later, unlike those that didn't get bee-bothering chemicals
- some colonies just don't do well due to Nosema, acarine, poor queens, inappropriate feeding, viruses, chalkbrood or a range of other issues which are only properly understood when you have professional and highly trained bee health people running the work

Hardly original, I know. The kind of thing you can pick up in any good bee husbandry book.

I have another theory. Some swarms are thin at one end, get thicker in the middle, and are thin again at the other end. Ahem!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAYDiPizDIs

Don't get me wrong, Trog. Deciphering the aural communication in bee hives would be a fine thing and I'd be really interested in the outcome. Presumably the original reason for linking this to a study trying to prove a link to pesticides was that someone thought that bees were going to get confused and disorientated when exposed, and show this in the sounds in a hive? Yet now all mention of pesticides is absent from the Connolly quote at the Beeb web site above, despite the £1.8m to study it.

[gavin]

That's another little black mark against my name!

OK, off to the new Perth BKA AGM.

[Trog]

OK, Gav, you're a scientist; I'm a musician. IIRC the chap who did the original research into the sounds bees make was also musical. I use my ears as much as my eyes with the bees. These black box listening devices are therefore interesting to me regardless of whatever else is found out because they are listening when I am not. Sorry if that's not scientific enough but there's more than one way to approach life and I'm happy with mine.

[GRIZZLY]

Daffodils realy coming into bloom-catching up to the Snowdrops.Bees working the Snowdrops and also all over the Daffodils from which they are getting loads of pollen.First time I can recall seeing them on the Daffodils-thet're just mugging each flower as it comes out.All hives are active - realy nice to see them all come thro' so far.Hopefully will be an early season.Must go and check the O.S.R.fields for suitable sites for the bees.

[Trog]

We're not that far north of you, Grizzly, but it's wet n windy here today. Daffs out down the road but not in our garden. Crocus has attempted flowering as usual and, as usual, been drowned and battered! However, the first tulip is flowering so I've put a wire basket over it to try and keep the deer off! Lots of housework going on in the hives but has anyone else noticed fewer dead bees outside the entrances this winter?

[Calum]

0°c again here today, but I am a little further south.
The ground is still frozen solid. But time to check the hive weights - when they kick off they'll use about 300g/day... So I'll be shuffeling stores from the two that didnt make it to light ones this weekend, if it is warm enough...

[Bridget]

About 11degrees but very blustery and squally in the Highlands so I was surprised to see them out and about, battling against the wind to get back to the hive. No idea what they are finding to bring back but they seem to have something dangling from their legs. (note to self - put the kit on, go in closer and take a tripod for those shaky hands) Photo taken at about 12 feet and blown up so sorry not very clear. any ideas? I've been out looking for hazel, found one fairly close but not a bud on it let alone a catkin. A few bedraggled crocus and some snowdrops but they are not interested in them. PS How do bees carry water home?

[GRIZZLY]

Bees carry water same as nectar - in their honey stomachs.

[gavin]

Bees at the association apiary were taking nectar from winter Ericas at lunchtime (12C) and Murray says some of his are on butterbur (white pollen) and that he's seen the first willow out (which is remarkably early).

[Hoomin_erra]

Daffs are starting to shoot up, snowdrops are out, as is Willow and gorse.

But the bees have battened down the hatches, so they don't fly sideways like the chickens.

[Rosie]

I am surpised you have willow out in your part of the world. Here there is little evidence of willow starting apart from a few signs of white parts showing on buds at the very top of the trees. I only know that because I cut one down today and spotted the buds. From the ground they all look dormant. We do have snowdrops though and the hazel catkins are starting to elongate.

Rosie

[gavin]

I haven't seen them out myself yet but there is a long row of them near the association apiary and they've been showing full white catkins for a fortnight or so.

Spent some time with Murray this afternoon and he showed me the butterburs near one of his apiaries. They supply nectar as well as pollen over quite a long season.

And the hazel has been in full flower for a while.

[drumgerry]

Hazel, whin and snowdrops out just now here in Speyside. Bees were flying strongly yesterday bringing in bright orange pollen in the 14C temps - none poking their heads out today in 7C!

[Neils]

Mine were just about flying today. Once colony was very light on stores and I'm out of fondant so I've used a bag of sugar soaked in water plonked on top of the feed hole. Most of it seems to be dripping through the floor but I'm a bit happier that they shouldn't starve.

A few trees have blossom which is where I'm guessing the small amounts of pollen I saw going in was coming from but the allotment still looks a good few weeks away from bursting into life.

[Jon]

so I've used a bag of sugar soaked in water plonked on top of the feed hole. .

R U Eric in disguise!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsACIBI5NPk

[Neils]

Not quite, simply couldn't get my hands on any fondant in a short space of time and I didn't want to consider the possibility that they'd starve. Heard it said that in a push a bag of sugar soaked in water is an "emergency" replacement for fondant but without the risks of giving them full on syrup so early in the year.

[Jon]

The sugar bag works fine in an emergency but there is a lot of waste if you have an OMF.
I often use sugar in the apideas - slightly wetted with a water sprayer.
It is getting to be expensive.
I think out local fondant supplier is charging near £15 for a 12.5k box and a bag of sugar is over £1 in most of the supermarkets.

[Neils]

£1 a bag is still cheaper than £150+ a nuc! I can cope with a bit of wastage. Spring is trying to sprung but it's not here yet and the hive is only light because it ws a late nuc that didn't have time to properly build up and bring the stores in so I feel a degree of responsibility for them being light on stores, I just don't want to put them on syrup if I don't have to.

[Jimbo]

I have moved to the Drone Rangers method of adding sugar. I place 500g in a plastic food container, add about 30-40ml of water and stick it in the microwave for 2mins. I take it out and give it another mix and another 1 min in the microwave. Depends on the power of your microwave.Take it out (carefully as it is molten sugar) tap it down with a teaspoon to firm up and leave to cool. It gives me a thin slab of candy which fits nicely over the frames. Add as many slabs you require. As it is hard candy there is little loss of sugar.

[gavin]

As I'm getting low on fondant and I still have some bags of sugar kicking about in the back of the estate (as you do) I've resorted to the wetted sugar bag trick too for a couple of colonies. They've been taking it out of the bags for the last few weeks. Interesting to read of Drone Ranger's tip - sounds worth a try. It isn't easy to judge the right amount of water to add to the bag in the apiary so some of mine started slopping down through the frames too.

Guess that puts me in Eric's gang - on the other hand I suspect that this is an old trick that predates young whippersnappers like Eric.

[Neils]

Only one small problem for me Jimbo, I don't own a microwave.

[Jon]

You invested too much of your personal wealth in that fancy cellphone.
Maybe a neighbour would let you dissolve some sugar in a microwave.
Everyone knows the bees are dying (see Moraybeedinosaurs site) and I imagine they will be queuing up to help alleviate the plight of our endangered pollinators.

I got a microwave in the local co-op for £29.99 about 10 years ago and it is still working perfectly heating up baked beans and melting frozen soup from the freezer.
Every other machine in the house has broken down in that time including the gas boiler twice.

[gavin]

There may be another way for Nellie. You never know with these Bristolian neighbours. Can turn on you (but more likely your local Tescos) at the drop of a hat.

This came in from Bee-L tonight. It appears to use only traditional ingredients without the need for special electronics.

This winter I used left over 2:1 syrup, which I do not cook I just add the
hottest tap water I have to my sugar and stir, and made my packed sugar
with it. Generally I do the 1 oz of cold water to each pound of sugar but I
wanted to use up the syrup. It set up like a brick, very hard, I like it a
lot better. I ended up using about 1.5 to 1.25 ozs, by measured not weight,
to each pound of sugar. It dries quickly, doesn't crumble or break I think
I will always use syrup instead of water for hard packed sugar.

Karen T-K

[Neils]

More likely to kill their bees feeding them the "best" brown organic sugar these days. The Tesco is still there. No-one uses it very much but they've stopped trying to burn it down.

I don't need a microwave and I've only got a small kitchen so there are other gadgets I'd rather than have if it came to it.

One hive was looking a bit light so I shoved a bag of sugar on it, blimey. I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition No-one expects the spanish inquisition. over it. :)

[Jon]

One hive was looking a bit light so I shoved a bag of sugar on it, blimey. I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition No-one expects the spanish inquisition. over it. :)

People have been burnt for less and been thankful for it.
Could you not set a small microwave on top of something?
Is your kitchen so small as to be completely bereft of Formica?

[Jimbo]

Nellie You could do it the old fashioned way and just boil the sugar on your stove If you look at the SBA Technical Data sheets the method is there for making candy. That is if you have a stove and still not cooking on an open fire

[Neils]

Blimey, don't you start!

It's a bit tricky making candy in a cauldron over an open fire, fairytale accounts to the contrary not withstanding.

To be honest I didn't want to go through all the faff of making candy for one hive. Nor did I want to start feeding syrup (once you start, you can't stop!). A bag of wet sugar does the job, is quick, cheap and easy and doesn't require me covering the kitchen in hot sugar which always impresses the mrs.

[chris]

A bag of wet sugar does the job, is quick, cheap and easy and doesn't require me covering the kitchen in hot sugar which always impresses the mrs.

Nellie, do you slash the paper wrapping a little?

[Neils]

I did, probably more than was strictly necessary but I put it on top of the crown board rather than directly on the frames.

[Jon]

When I fed sugar to my nucs I put a double piece of newspaper on top of the top bars and poured the sugar on to it. I then sprayed it with a water sprayer until it just started to dissolve a bit. If you look in a couple of hours later the bees are all around the edge of the pile tucking in. This was summer feeding rather than winter though.

Bees are flying well today in dull weather 11c.

I had to sneak the microwave into the house and the complaints went on for several years afterwards. For some reason the other half equates microwaves with all that is wrong with the world. I might as well have piled up a load of trainers stitched by slave labour Vietnamese children on the work surface. I get the same reaction every time I come home with something from Primark.
In your case you might be confusing microwaves with Microsoft.

[Neils]

I earn a living off MS products so I've no problem with MS, Apple just make better, more convenient, windows machines than everyone else.

I just don't need a microwave and have nowhere to put it, I'd rather have a nice coffee machine or a food processor.

[Jon]

Reluctantly changing the subject from home appliances back to bees, I noticed that one of my colonies had a pile of mouse chewed wax under the OMF.
I never got round to putting the mouse guards on this year although I am the proud owner of ten of them purchased for under £1 each in a special offer by Thorne some years ago.
This was a weak colony in December and a quick look showed that the mouse had only chewed a bit of one frame at the back.
I saw a patch of eggs on the next frame and the one after that had brood all stages so I closed it up at that point.
If this one has brood they will all have brood.
We did not get any of that sub zero weather they had in Ingerland and it has been around 8c-10c right through January and February.
The stronger colonies were really busy and bringing in a lot of pollen of various colours.

[GRIZZLY]

(We did not get any of that sub zero weather they had in Ingerland and it has been around 8c-10c right through January and February.
The stronger colonies were really busy and bringing in a lot of pollen of various colours).[/QUOTE]

Jon not only did you not get lower temperatures = you're sitting over there in blazing sunshine.I know 'cos I can see it from here in the Rhins of Galloway away over the sea.We're sitting in the gloom of low black cloud with occasional rain.My bees are sort of working but theres very little forage for them at the moment.No sign of the willows yet,the whins are flowering but the bulbs are on the wane.

[gavin]

More on low energy, low use of domestic appliance sugar products for the early spring:

You do need to line your containers with wax paper or parchment paper. I
line the container with paper, put my wet sugar in and press it in good. I
make all thicknesses. The link is to a block which is 3 1/2 pounds, made it
in a 9 X 12 X 1 1/2 aluminum pan.
https://plus.google.com/photos/113800188780791381044/albums/5714303982631670545?banner=pwa


I always leave the paper on the blocks when I put them in hives. Drying
time is short since I put them in the furnace room where it is warm and put
shims between them for air space. The thin ones, like in the photo, usually
dry in 24 hours but that is in a very dry warm room. I have put a fan on
them when I needed them fast. The syrup is the way to go they are much
harder than with cold water. I was mixing twenty pounds of sugar at a time
and wishing I had a cement mixer.

I do not put any protein patties on until this time of year since most
winters my bees do not get to fly. This winter most days have been 40 F or
above and spring is early the daffodils have buds.

Karen (on Bee-L)

Amazingly, it being February still, there are Forsythias in flower here - and not just in suburban areas but my rural homeland too. That is one bush that goes by temperature rather than daylength or some other measure of the calendar. Of course the bees generally have little interest in Forsythia, but they do visit flowering currant more often and it is out too. As the rule is generally not to open bee hives until the flowering currant is out, I opened one yesterday and even lifted a frame to show Julie, a great supporter of beekeeping through SBS Ltd, something you'll hear more about later.

[Jon]

you're sitting over there in blazing sunshine

I wish!
It is fairly bright though and 11c again today.

Forsythia and flowering currant are out here too.

[Jimbo]

Gavin, Lifes too short for all that faffing around. Damp sugar in the microwave 2-3 min. Job done, and you will have a block of candy similar to the one in the photo

[GRIZZLY]

Seems like a good prospect for first hive examinations next week.Slap bang in the middle of a high with no wind and the promise of reasonable temperatures.Been nice today with the bees flying freely.Bit of pollen coming in.

[gavin]

Today the cherry plum (aka myrobalan plum, the rootstock of many of the plum trees in the orchard) was in flower. Saw a little blackthorn out locally too, one early dandelion and the bees were very busy bringing in mostly willow pollen but a few other types too.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/cherry_plum2.JPG

See the stushie at the hives.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/incoming_hives.JPG

Here's one in mid-air approaching another dowsed in willow pollen.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/wheeee.JPG

There are more in the blog (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/entry.php?321-March-in-the-orchard).

[Neils]

Steady on Gavin, lovely photos again.

[gavin]

I hadn't realised that my ham-fisted banging in of nails was going to get such exposure. I'll try for more of these shots of the main flows through the season. OSR next, or maybe dandelion or sycamore.

[EmsE]

We've had two beautiful days this weekend with sunshine from dawn till dusk :D. I took the opportunity to brush down the open mesh floors which only had a handful of dead bees on as the bees had done a great job of clearing them anyway. Those on solid floors (that came with the 2nd hand hives I got) received a fresh, dry one which will hopefully help the bees feel better and ready for spring :)

It would be a shame to discard the solid floors but after seeing one after winter certainly feel the omf faired better so I'll try and adapt them. Thornes are selling The national varroa screen for £15 which would do the job however will see if I can make them instead.

[Jon]

Hi Emse.
I have about half on solid floors and half on open mesh floors and I am damned if I can notice much difference. If anything the ones on the solid floors build up a wee bit faster in spring. You get better ventilation with the OMF but better heat retention with the solid floor so a case of swings and roundabouts. Mine were all flying well this weekend. Stacks of pollen coming in.

[Adam]

Today the cherry plum (aka myrobalan plum, the rootstock of many of the plum trees in the orchard) was in flower. Saw a little blackthorn out locally too, one early dandelion and the bees were very busy bringing in mostly willow pollen but a few other types too.

Gavin there's also the mirabella plum which appears to be slightly different if you go to wikepedia (mirabellum - prunus domestica syriaca) or the myrobalan (prunus cerasifera). Is there any significant difference? I suspect not. (Sorry, module 2!).

[gavin]

Hi Adam

Yes, they are different but after a while one Prunus starts to look like another! The identification of the plants in the orchard was by a local fruit expert so I don't plan to argue. Myrobalan plum (=cherry plum) was commonly used as a rootstock and often re-grows in old orchards and can grow into a tree after the original plum has gone.

The Mirabelle plum is a cultivar with lots of small yellow fruit. I don't know if it flowers as early as cherry plum does.

The local plums are now well out in the Carse of Gowrie (the early ones anyway!).

Gavin

PS Once of this Parish - LOL!

[GRIZZLY]

When I lived "down south"-actually Royal Leamington Spa, our local park had planted a load of cherry plums for ornament.The plums were of 3 colours - yellow,red and black.We refered to them as "bullaces".They made the most delicious plum wine.I've still got a couple of bottles now over 20 years old,clear as a bell and VERY potent.
The weather continues very cool with a nasty cold bite in the wind.The willows are slowly coming out but I recon another week at least before they are much use to the bees.You seem to be getting the sun and higher temperatures Gavin.Still too cold to do much with the bees except watch a few hardy souls struggle in with a bit of daffodil and whins pollen.Bud break slow here this year.

[Mellifera Crofter]

I think I'll also get a cherry plum tree in the ground as soon as possible. I've planted loads of willows and crocuses - but there's still a shortage of forage around here apart from a few gorse bushes (and not enough of them either). I saw a bee on a daffodil today. I thought bees aren't interested in daffodils, so does that mean she is desperate, or just curious?
Kitta

[nemphlar]

I had a mature alder next door for early pollen until the badgers undermined it, I planted 100's of king Alfred's in bunches around the garden to try and replace this source and the bees always work them, it just needs a critical mass for them to notice.

[Adam]

Thanks Gavin.

PS Once of this Parish - LOL!

Ahh I see, you look but don't touch!

Kitta, I too thought that bees don't like daffodils unless there's not much else. (That's the published wisdom anyway).

[Jon]

We should add that daffodil pic to the beekeeping myths thread. I have been guilty of repeating that one myself.

[drumgerry]

I'd be interested to hear more about the daffodils thing if anyone has more information. Our garden is heaving with them - hundreds if not thousands of them - and I've never seen a bee bothering with them. Maybe we have the wrong varieties?

[Mellifera Crofter]

I don't have any more information, Drumgerry - perhaps you need King Alfreds, or perhaps your bees have plenty of other things to eat. I saw another daffodil visitor today. I think Adam is right - they're only visiting my daffodils because of the scarcity of other bee plants. Perhaps, with the loss of the alder, Nemphlar's bees are in a similar situation?

The critical mass idea is interesting. Recently, in South Africa, I visited a beekeeper who is researching and evaluating bee forage. He gave the example of aloes which have a low value in terms of bee forage, but if your hive is placed on a hill covered with aloes, then they become a valuable food source - like Nemphlar's King Alfreds, I suppose. (That South African beekeeper gave me a jar of Jacaranda honey - it was delicious.)

Kitta

[gavin]

Ahh I see, you look but don't touch!


I sometime go there for a peek, but I'm not minded to post there. Don't trust them not to mess with it again, still annoyed about the stupid changes, the images on the old posts are still goosed, so many of the old posters gone, now seems a mostly BBKA forum rather than a welcoming international one ..... no point really. So I post on the one that seems to have a good number beekeepers lacking even the most basic social responsibility!

Today? So much happening out there. The willows are in full flow. There was a good flush of dandelions open in the Technology Park at lunchtime, lots of plums out locally. Early pear trees not far off flowering. Bees bringing in lots of pollen. The orchard has geese now which are very friendly creatures, coming right up to me and even peering in boxes when I took the roof off. Hand-reared I believe.

Oh, and lots of daffs with not a bee on them.

[GRIZZLY]

My bees are working the daffodils like mad.We've got about 1/2 an acre of them -all different varieties-and the bees don't differentiate between the varieties at all.The pollen is quite yellow.I dont know if any nectar is produced although some of the flowers are very scented.Todays warmer weather has started the willow catkins into growth so it wont be long before the bees are able to work them.Dissappointingly our local O.S.R. farmer is giving his farm a rest this year and is growing it on his fathers farm some 30 miles away which makes the transport costs quite significant when repeated visits are necessary to avoid solid combs.I've just acquired a good out apiary site for some of my stocks with a large acreage of sycamore and about 600 acres of pasture laced with a lot of white clover-so have high hopes of a crop provided the weather is kind.All my stocks have come thro' the winter ,all with a surprisingly large amount of stores in the brood boxes.

[Jon]

Hi Grizzly. I think it has been a good winter all round. Hardly any losses and most of mine have plenty of stores as well. I have a couple of colonies much stronger than expected for the time of year.
There is a lot of early forage out.
Dandelion has been in flower for several weeks here. I watched a bee collecting pollen from one in the garden earlier today. I don't know if they are secreting nectar but this bee was only after pollen.
I noticed a couple of flowers open on my Victoria plum and the Conference Pear tree is not far behind.
There are also a few flowers on the gooseberries and I watched a bee working them this afternoon.
I noticed some of the autumn raspberry I didn't cut back has flower almost out and it usually starts to flower at the end of July.

I checked the colony where I released a replacement queen for a drone layer last Saturday and she was running around nicely and I saw a patch of eggs. That one will be slow to build up as it is starting to make brood a month later than the others. I will give it some emerging brood later on but it is too early to be redistributing brood in March.

[Adam]

So I post on the one that seems to have a good number beekeepers lacking even the most basic social responsibility!
.

I noticed that too. Thankfully that attitude doesn't appear here. :)

[gavin]

If it does this place has plenty of socially responsible beekeepers to slap such attitudes down.

It is worrying that there are such attitudes in the beekeeping community. In the last few days I've been completely rethinking my own attitude to the regulation of beekeeping. Maybe we need compulsory registration, or local laws regulating beekeeping in urban areas. Folk need protection from the nutters.

[Jon]

There seem to be a lot of folk who think they can do whatever they like in their own garden and to hell with the neighbours.
I am sure we all get mildly irritated at times by some of the neighbours' activities but it's crazy to fall out over hedge height, smoky barbeques or noisy kids.

[Adam]

If it does this place has plenty of socially responsible beekeepers to slap such attitudes down.

It is worrying that there are such attitudes in the beekeeping community. In the last few days I've been completely rethinking my own attitude to the regulation of beekeeping. Maybe we need compulsory registration, or local laws regulating beekeeping in urban areas. Folk need protection from the nutters.

Problem, though, is you can't have a rule that says "You're welcome to be a beekeeper as long as you're not a git." Even if it makes sense. The next problem is, if the 'gits' are awkward and 'nuisance beek' articles get into the tabloids we'll get laws that will help nobody.

[Adam]

No dandelion for me yet. Some of the later prunus trees are just about to flower and a little Braeburn apple tree in the garden is about to flower too.
I have a nuc which had no viable queen and I dumped a mini-nuc on it - uniting with newspaper. Once united I put in 2 frames of brood with young bees and that seems to be doing nicely. I took the opportunity before the queen laid up too much brood and there were enough bees to look after the inserted brood.

[Jon]

There is a certain sense of satisfaction in saving basket case colonies. One of my strongest at the moment was down to a queen and a couple of hundred bees this time last year and it still has the same queen. I rescued it to an apidea and built it up to a stack of four before shaking it on to a couple of frames of emerging brood in June.

[GRIZZLY]

Finaly managed to rehive all my neucs into nice new hives with additional clean combs and wax.Am now feeding to bounce the hive populations up and to get some nice drawn comb.Loads of pollen coming in especially as my willows are now coming out.Loads of butterflies about,mainly tortoiseshells but with the odd peacock as well.

[gavin]

It seems like such a long time ago when the weather was so good for the bees.

I had lunch with two beekeepers today, one of them a full-time professional, and his guys reported in to say that they were surprised to find themselves putting second supers on some colonies in Fife despite the unpromising weather.

When I saw my own hives an hour or two later - in between the heavy showers and the black clouds to the north and at a temp of about 11C - all six were flying furiously. One seemed to be bringing more rape than the others but most of the activity seemed to be from something else. I could see bees on sycamore (and there is a lot of that nearby), horse chestnut and pear. It looks like the trees are yielding quite a bit of nectar at the moment. One sycamore near the apiary is starting go over but sycamore likes to stagger its flowering so there are plenty more trees to come.

Not quite at the supering stage in my apiary as some colonies have gone backwards in terms of bee numbers in the last month, but they are making up for lost time when the sun comes out. Wet ground and a lack of wind really seems to help.

[Jimbo]

Colonies building up nicely but the sycamore is no where near ready in the West. A few more weeks for the horse chestnut though. Did an introduction to beekeeping night for the general public on Thursday. Over 25 people turned up and 18 of those has indicated they are interested in opening hives in the club apairy. About to run 2 sessions this afternoon. Its great to see there is still interest in people starting beekeeping If they all then join the association we will have to look for a bigger hall as we will have doubled the membership in one night

[Jon]

Good result Jimbo. The horse chestnut is in flower in sub tropical Belfast and the sycamore is nearly out as well. Pear is just about finished and apple has started. Dandelion everywhere and several fields of oil seed rape. I wonder how much of these sources are producing nectar at temperatures of 10-11c. The rape wont be. No shortage of pollen anyway.

[gavin]

We've wondered about a public day of some kind too, maybe in mid-summer, but I have my hands full with beginners at the moment (in a manner of speaking).

The sycamore which has been flowering for three weeks is alongside a horse chestnut which has also been in flower for a week or two. I think that they got a fright when some oaks around them blew down in winter so they've been spooked into rushing into flower. Trust me, I'm a (plant) doctor. Many others are in early flowering in sheltered spots but there are large areas not out yet. Too wet for them today I would think.

[Bumble]

The sycamore which has been flowering for three weeks is alongside a horse chestnut which has also been in flower for a week or two.

You're lucky. Here, in the frozen south, neither sycamore nor horse chestnut are close to flowering

[Rosie]

Nor here. I just noticed that my dandelions have just come out today although they have been around for over a week just half a mile down the road.

Rosie

[gavin]

I think that the sycamores are going to be spread out over a long season here this year. There are plenty not yet in flower.

There have been some dandelions out for weeks and more recently huge numbers in the grassy roadside areas around Dundee. The bees may have 3-4 days of mediocre weather to make something of the forage available, then it is forecast to close in again for perhaps a week. I'm now making up the first syrup I've made since the autumn ...

[Jon]

Mine were flying strongly and I checked the 9 I have at the allotment. Stores were grand and there was evidence of fresh nectar and pollen. I swapped a couple of frames of sealed stores around to balance up the stores. I would say on average there are 10-12 lbs of stores in each colony.
They are still building up and all had a larger brood area than when I last looked properly just over 2 weeks ago.
I put supers on 3 although they would probably have been ok for another week.
the one I requeened after finding a drone laying queen mid march is doing well. I had it dummied down to 5 frames and 4 of them were well covered with brood so I had to give it a couple more. I gave it a frame of emerging brood from a stronger colony two weeks ago which has obviously helped. This year the colonies which have built up more slowly have a definite advantage. Loads of reports of starving bees in England.

[Rosie]

Mine will not be doing much flying today!

944946945

The polytunnel is like Noah's ark when this happens. Everyone is saved except the poor bees. It's a good job they can take it. By the time the water has stopped rising it will be another 2 inches higher - at least it's always stopped at that point before.:eek:

The rainbow one was taken a couple of weeks ago so I'm hoping to see something similar soon.

Rosie

[Jimbo]

Great weather today. The sun has been out and we have had quite high temperatures. It is predicted for another week of the same. Bees were flying and I had to put a super on a couple of the stronger hives

[Jon]

Definitely better oop north this past few weeks

[GRIZZLY]

Sycamores very slow here - more not out than out.Saw our first Swallow yesterday but they were down in Penarth S.Wales on the 12th of April.They are about a fortnight later than last year.Still having to feed the bees as they are consuming their stores faster than they can replace them.Lots of pollen from the Whins tho'

[Mellifera Crofter]

The polytunnel is like Noah's ark when this happens.

I enjoyed seeing your ark, Rosie. Happy animals.
K

[gavin]

Just spotted it Rosie - its them almonds, LOL!

If you ever move again you need to choose more wisely next time. Unless you fancy starting a canoeing tourist business. Canoeing in and out of the beehives? It would be novel.

I had a sheep in the back garden munching the lawn yesterday. I tried telling it it was welcome to stay until it had brought the lawn under control but it just hurrumphed slightly and trotted over to the back corner where it knew of a gap in the hedge. I'll give it a week to trim the grass then block off its way in before the vegetable seeds sprout. What's the world coming to when there are feral sheep roaming around arable east Perthshire.

We had a flurry of swallows around here over the weekend too. Still far too cold in the baltic east for much bee foraging. However there are some late OSR fields just coming into flower, plenty of sycamore left and the hawthorn is going to flower soon so all is not lost.

[Rosie]

If you ever move again you need to choose more wisely next time. Unless you fancy starting a canoeing tourist business. Canoeing in and out of the beehives? It would be novel.


You've got a good point there Gavin. I must admit that when we chose this place we were not aware that we were in a frost pocket with an arctic microclimate nor that the river floods whenever we get torrential rain. However it has its advantages if you are trying to breed native bees because softies just don't survive or produce honey. I've got my winter survival rate to 95% on about 6kg of stores so they have adapted in just 4 winters. One of the two I lost was imported from out of county and the other was a case of Marie Celeste so I would guess they were queenless and moved next door, leaving no dead bees or brood but plenty of stores.

Rosie

[Rosie]

I enjoyed seeing your ark, Rosie. Happy animals.
K

You're welcome to see them in the flesh if you are ever passing this way.

Rosie

[Jon]

Sure you don't live in Ireland Steve? That scenery is very typical.
What sort of a goat is that? He looks like an Alpine or an Alpine cross.

[Rosie]

Jon

I'm definietely between the Berwyn mountains and Snowdonia so I know I'm not in Ireland. They are 100% Welsh speakers here too if you need further evidence.
That goat is a pygmy cross. She's not mine nor is the other which is just out of the camera view. I can't get rid of them because whenever I take them home they reappear next day. A bit like Gavin's sheep. Do you fancy a couple of greedy goats that steel ewe nuts?

Rosie

[Feckless Drone]

Hi - first post of this beginner, well at start of second season. Any typos are a consequence of the first sting of the season.

I thought about putting out a bait hive last week then realised that this was hopelessly optimistic. Yesterday, found a small clump of sad looking bees in the garden, right beside where I caught a swarm last year. It could be a small cast with an unmated Q or the remnants of a first swarm and the value has moved on and I've missed out and that's a real downer. I checked the garden and could not see anything else. I would have thought it too early for casts so this latter scenario might be most probable. If I was sure this came from my hive I thought I could treat as an artificial swarm with an additional inconvenient step, ie catching the swarm. But, my garden hive is vigorous with excellent numbers of bees in brood box and in the super (with 8 frames worth of nectar and sealed stores - had to get that in). So, I don't think the swarm originates from this hive but cannot be sure. Anyway did not try the AS approach and those 8 frames of stores will be gone by teatime given the weather today.

I've poly-nuked the cluster on foundation (as a beginner I am light on comb, did not see a Q) and tried to revive with syrup, some as a spray direct on the bees, so will just leave to see if anything develops. I am not too hopeful given how sorry they looked but I could not just leave them there. However, bait hive is getting set up this week. The poly-nuc model I use has the feeder in a side pocket and in a case like this I wish I could use a rapid feeder rather than rely on the bees seeking the syrup out. I'll leave them for a few days then peek in to see if they are doing anything then decide if more syrup is justified.

Anyone else reporting swarms or Q-cells yet? I am especially keen to hear about Tayside area.

Anyone else have success with a small cluster growing up? And any comments/advice welcome.

[Jon]

Hi FD
Swarms tend to land on the same spot year after year due to traces of queen pheromone so you know where to check first.
How small is your cluster? If it is a cupful of bees they should go into an apidea if there is a queen.
There are often a couple of hundred stragglers left behind after a swarm has departed.
have you checked your hive for queen cells? that should answer your question about where the swarm originated.
It can be quite difficult to estimate colony strength if you are a beginner.
If you have 35,000 bees in a brood box and you lose 10,000 in a prime swarm, would you immediately notice the difference between a box with 25,000 and a box with 35,000 bees. In warm weather a box looks far fuller as the bees cluster more when it gets cooler. One thing you notice after losing a swarm is that a super which was previously full of bees is now almost empty.
New bees could be emerging at a rate of 1500 per day so it only takes a few days after a swarm for a colony to appear full of bees again

[kevboab]

Well, still no sign of this cool weather easing up yet. Never got a chance to get to apiary over weekend but glad I popped in today as two were very light when hefted so first feed since last autumn has just been delivered. Plenty pollen going in from girls that still have the winter woollies on. Would love to get into one of my strong colonies and pinch a frame of hatching brood to boost a nuc but its just gonna have to fend for itself me thinks till a decent day arrives.

[gavin]

Nice to see you posting FD. You know where I am if you wish a hand looking into a hive some lunchtime - it is a possibility that it was yours and that the bulk of them returned home. On the other hand, you already know from last year that you have a source of swarms nearby.

G.

[Neils]

An entertaining evening on the one hand pulling swarms out of trees and depressing on the other having lost one of the Nucs and by the sad few stragglers left, by a matter of days :( Starvation is the obvious cause, but as it was starting to tip down I've shut them up and will take a closer look on a drier day. Abundant forage literally feet from the hives, just goes to show that you can never be too sure. Other hives were also very light and have all been given a feed. I'll head up tomorrow morning to give the swarms a bit of syrup to tide them over despite improving weather forecasts over the next few days, they've got some work to do.

Also been impersonating chappie from Countryfile/BKF in taking a sting very close to the giblets! No more black trousers for me during inspections either.

[gavin]

Ahh .... did no-one tell you about black trousers?!

[Neils]

I did think, but the clouds were gathering, it was getting late and I did have some notion of trying to have a look at the other hives after hiving the swarm that I knew about. The one we didn't threw a bit of a spanner in the works, just as well I'd taken two complete hives and stands up with me!

Angry, angry bees tonight. The swarms were lovely though.

[Jon]

Ahh .... did no-one tell you about black trousers?!

I always reckoned he was a Goth.

I checked 5 colonies today and they were fine but a friend said his were bad today.

Paraphrasing Bob Marley, a hungry bee is an angry bee.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIq7RvStNB0

[Neils]

If I'd gone up at lunch I'd probably have been fine, the hive in question is normally placid as you like, tonight they were still buzzing round me as I tidied up the second swarm a good 30 minutes after I'd closed them up. That was typically hard to get hold of and I managed to break the cluster so was going back every 10 minutes or so to scoop up another mini cluster and put it in the hive. Scooping up handfuls of placid bees while 10-15 madder than Sarah palin bees battered me at the same time was entertaining. The two I found INSIDE my hood luckily came from the swarm but I have no idea how they got there.

[Jon]

but I have no idea how they got there

...planted by Bayer Cropscience!

[Calum]

Caught my first swarm of 2012 at the weekend. A nice one too.
Missed another one - someone else got it, but it was a handful in the middle of a big rose bush, so good luck to them..
I have heard of 5 so far - they are keen to get out!
http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=954

[Bumble]

Temperatures here in the frozen south are hovering around 8C during the day and dropping to between 3C and 5C overnight. There is an almost permanent icy east wind.

The weather's been so dire that our bees have eaten all their early stores and have been getting through syrup at a rate of knots. We've ended up giving fondant because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The bees don't seem to mind.

[gavin]

We had three reasonable days this week and so the hives have gone from dangerously light to a fair bit heavier ... however the forecast isn't good for the next fortnight. Currently 1C out there and falling.

[Neils]

I'm down in Devon, hoping the weather holds out to go visit the Basterfields for a general husbandry course. I did consider ringing uncle Phil to see if he fancied a pint, but figured that probably wouldnt end well.

Never got to May without managing an inspection yet. I've picked up a couple of swarms, but this week I've slapped on more syrup in one day than I've done in my entire time beekeeping because every single hive is light. No doubt the weather will turn next week and I end up with supers tainted with sugar.

[GRIZZLY]

Went thro' all my colonies yesterday.Full of sealed brood,lots of pollen and virtually no stores.Have put feed on all of them as the forecast for the next week is dire.No sign of Q cells yet but have supered them all to give plenty of room.Bees prospering in both types of Polyhives(M.B. and Swienty).Still no sign of local Sycamore coming into leaf and flower,although fully out lower down in town.One colony decided to turn nasty,so a possible canditate for future re-queening when Q cells appear.My oldest queen is now in her 3rd year and has wall to wall sealed brood and exceptionally even tempered calm bees.No sign of becomming a drone layer so must have been well mated.Thirty years ago we used to consider the life of a queen to be four to five years and then to requeen her or she would be naturally superceded.Not so it would seem with the modern varietes,it almost seems a requisit to requeen every year or so.How times have changed.No varroa stress then of course and only nosema apis and acarine to contend with.

[gavin]

Do you think that is the reason Grizzly? It seems odd that bees should become so different - or is it just that the bees were genetically less swarmy then? If so it should be easy to get back by selection.

[GRIZZLY]

I recon,Gavin,that the old "hedgegrow"mongrels,whilst perhaps a bit more feisty than todays bees were less inclined to swarm so frequently and were on the whole healthier and would stand more stress.I didn't have to feed so lavishly and can't remember losing overwintering stocks.The advent of varroa has changed my beekeeping dramatically with far more emphasis on continuous treatments to keep the mite and acarine under my control to maintain very low levels.We would "fumigate" hives and frames with acetic acid,use fumadil in feeds and folbex strips if we thought that acarine would prove a problem.PDB was used to keep the wax moth out of stored super frames.Now the EEC has outlawed these items and we no longer have an approved treatment for either type of nosema.I'm sure also that O.A. whilst doing no appreciable harm to the bees could have long term implications in the far distant future.Mites are now resistant to the pyrethroids used for their control so a different approach based on amitraz is on the books.What "nasty" will follow when the mites yet again become resistant?.Do you think I've just become "a grumpy old man" or perhaps a cynic?.I recon beekeeping has become a minefield for beginners with so much conflicting information from the" treat" or" dont treat "brigade that simple basic apiary management has become confusing.

[GRIZZLY]

Still the weather interferes with the colony development.Alternate days of hot weather when they fly like mad and bring in lots of pollen etc and icy cold days when they stay indoors and consume what they gathered yesterday.The wind has a real arctic icy bite to it.I'm still having to pile in the feed to keep them going as the queens have been extremely busy with great slabs of brood .Our sycamores are still struggling to come into leaf-I think their flowering will be very late this year compared to last.My fruit trees are in flower but it will be a lottery if we get any fruit due to the overnight frosts.I think its likely that honey yields will be down this year too.Only time will tell as they say.

[EmsE]

It was a lovely morning in Renfrewshire (was as its now raining). All hive entrances were very busy- almost frantic. One hive needed feeding whilst another has a super on and the bees have it almost fillled with uncapped stores (going a lovely amber colour and lovely aroma :)). I was thinking of putting on a 2nd super to give them space to hang the nectar, but due to the poor forecast and cool temperatures, I think I'll leave it until next week. They may well need to use what they've put in there.

[Jon]

Lovely day here as well.
I checked 9 colonies and marked and clipped 5 queens. The other 4 were clipped last year.
7 of them have supers on and are nearing full strength.
There is little or nothing in the supers but there are enough stores in the brood boxes to see them through a poor couple of weeks.
Haven't had to feed any yet.
No queen cells either.
I set up the strongest one as a cell raiser by lifting most of the brood above the super and putting the queen in a new brood box with drawn comb back on the floor.
Might graft tomorrow if the weather is decent.
lots of drones in nearly every colony.

[Bridget]

Did a only a quick inspection today as although they were flying the wind was a bit chilly. I had put on a super a few weeks ago and some sugar syrup , and they are drawing out foundation well and some signs of stores in the super. Did not attempt a full inspection of the brood box as they were so quiet. Never seen that, we didn't need the smoke and if we'd been butt naked it would not have mattered. I've inspected under similar weather conditions but never so quiet though the super was 3/4 full of bees. Trouble is, as a newbie you see trouble everywhere. Perhaps they are just happy to be so busy. I dunno, these bees are a mystery.

[Bridget]

Ps. How do you know if they are storing sugar syrup in the super?

[Jon]

If you are feeding and anything is accumulating in the supers there will be sugar syrup in it.
It is a hard call, as you don't want a big colony which has enough bees to occupy a super to starve.
Little and often is probably the best advice, and fondant would be consumed more slowly than syrup.

[Bridget]

Thanks Jon, I'll make some fondant tomorrow

[gavin]

They can sometimes be really calm in spring. We had an 'improvers' (essentially second year beekeepers) class at my apiary today. The bees were lovely, but we never considered going butt naked! Once upon a time I did have to drop my trousers in the apiary, but not today thankfully.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/entry.php?147-Exposure-in-the-orchard

[GRIZZLY]

Sad about the Apple tree Gavin but it looks as tho.it's got heart rot -common affliction of old fruit trees.Nice early orchid tho'.

[Neils]

Mixed bag for me yesterday but I have finally managed an inspection. Up on the allotment I have one strong hive with a super that's full of sugar, that's not the end of the world though.

I have a swarm that appears to have no queen in it.

I have a full hive that should probably go in a Nuc.

I have a Nuc with a queen and a handful of bees in it that is hanging in there.

On the nature reserve they've essentially had it. They've just dwindled down to about a frame of bees. I don't honestly know at the moment what's gone wrong with this one, this is the colony that swarmed in march last year and produced the most honey. They were treated for varroa and show no obvious signs of varroa related disease, no obvious sign of nosema and no dead bees in the hive. I' ll try and get a sample from it to test for nosema but it's the end of the road for them I fear.

For the allotment I'm going back up today, I gave the swarm a test frame of eggs yesterday and while 24 hours might not enough time from that point of view I'm going to go through the frames to make absolutely sure they're queen less, if I'm satisfied that they are then my intention is to requeen them with the queen from the Nuc. I've not discounted that it might be a cast so I'll be taking an apidea up just to give me some more options but these are ligustica so them not having their own queen is no great loss for me and the donor frame comes from a hive I don't really want to raise queens from either, the queen in the Nuc however mated last year and appears "raring to go" just constrained by the number of bees in the Nuc she's also my last chance for a colony I actually want to raise queens from rather than the only option.

[Neils]

Well, we'll see what happens. went through the swarm hive 3 times without seeing any evidence of a queen. If I can find one in an 11 frame packed to the rafters hive I'd like to think I'd have been able to find one in a quiet 4 frame swarm.

The Nuc is no more, the queen is in a cage in the swarm

[Neils]

Today I have mostly been improving the allotment apiary after last week's shenanigans:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8017/7227731218_354a8437ee_b.jpg

We've also repositioned most of the hives that we could so that they point towards the fence and that building rather than out across the allotments. They haven't quite got the hang of the netting yet and seem content to fly into it rather than over it, but I'm sure they'll get there in the end.

My best hive is coming along nicely:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8161/7227732146_a7ec7078b0_b.jpg

Only two supers, the third is the empty one that all the hives have. The first super isn't quite full, but it's bursting with bees so it's as much to give them some extra room.

The poly hive which houses the swarm is coming along nicely, I thought this one was queenless so popped in the queen from a Nuc that was too small to really get going, sure enough I found eggs this time but could I find that queen?

Then I spotted this little minx running around: Turns out I can't spot a queen in a 4 frame swarm after all! In my defence she's quite short and fat and for a second I did have to double take to make sure.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5345/7227734794_b4b26c886b_b.jpg

And badly marked her. i'm revising my opinion on clipping after this spring, touch wood I haven't lost a swarm yet this year, but Hive 1 can't be too far off thinking about it.

[Jimbo]

Checked all my colonies today. No queen cells yet but close to swarming in some colonies. If the weather is good next week should get some swarm cells next week. Checking back my records for the last 10 years swarming usually starts about the 21st May so they are on track this year even though it has been cold.

[Neils]

Interesting stuff Jimbo, I'd be a liar if I said I had much of a sense for that kind of timing around these parts at the moment.

And it's nice to be actually talking about bees again.

[lindsay s]

I had to inspect all of my colonies today because it's been three weeks since I was last through them.
The weather was overcast with a cool easterly wind and not above 11°c. Although the bees were flying they soon got grumpy once the crown boards were removed, so I kept the frame exposure times to the bare minimum.
My strongest colony has seven frames of brood and needs a super. The other eight colonies have from four to six frames of brood and are short of stores. Three colonies are still being fed small quantities of syrup to help them draw out new foundation. One colony has a high level of chalk brood but the rest are OK. I still need to mark six queens but I will have to wait till it warms up.
I had plans to move a few colonies to a new apiary about ten miles away for the summer, but that will have to be put on hold for the moment. Overall my bees are well behind for this time of year.

[Jon]

A friend of mine found a colony close to starvation this evening.
We checked colonies at the association apiary this afternoon and they had sufficient stores but this one was on a different site 400' higher up where it is a degree or two colder. The ones at the association apiary were very calm, inspected at 13c but my mate said that the other one was vicious and it is usually very quiet. I have noticed that hungry bees can get very cranky.
Some of mine have got low on stores but I have been moving frames of stores from colonies with plenty to colonies with very little.
Weather is set to improve this week anyway.
The other good news is that I grafted 18 cells yesterday and on checking today 5 were started so at least I am up and running for the 2012 queen rearing season.

[Bumble]

Yesterday we housed a swarm in a home made correx box. They're still there today, so it can't be that badly made. Maybe we'll make some more.


Weather is set to improve this week anyway.

They're suggesting that it will reach 25C here on Thursday. I'll believe it when it happens.

[Jon]

Correx. You know it makes sense!
My birthday on Thursday so hoping to celebrate with a heatwave.

[Neils]

I think that contrary to popular belief swarms aren't really that fussy, if they're still there at the end of the following day they will be for a while.

Good luck with them, swarms are a mixed bag. I've got some fabulous bees from swarms and also some absolute horrors.

[Jon]

Our queen rearing group meets tonight.
Looking forward to it as the weather is brilliant today and is set fair all this week.
Should get quite a bit of grafting done.

[Bumble]

I think that contrary to popular belief swarms aren't really that fussy, if they're still there at the end of the following day they will be for a while
No, they aren't as fussy as some suggest, but maybe British mongrels behave differently from the US bees that were studied for swarm and bait hive research.

I think they're quite happy in their new-build des res. It's much more up-market than a slightly crumpled cardboard wine box, waterproofed with a bin bag.

Today, here, has been a gloriously sunny day. The sort of day you really have to spend sitting in a garage whilst a car fails an MOT and then gets fixed!

[GRIZZLY]

Went thro my Newzealand stocks today.All O.K. except one which had swarm cells.I decided to do an artificial swarm and set about finding the queen.Could I find her?,could I heck.I decided to "sieve" her out by shaking all the bees thro' a queen excluder into an empty hive placed on the original stand.A few puffs of smoke and the bees ran down into the brood box.Finally when there were just a few bees left above the excluder I spotted her.She was slim and looking as tho' the bees had starved her to get her ready for swarming.I picked her up ,placed her onto a drawn comb,trapped her with a "crown of thorns" and marked her.I then re-arranged everything so that the queen on her frame of drawn comb was in the bottom box which I filled out with frames of foundation.On went the queen excluder,supers and finally the old brood box with the brood.I covered them up to allow the nurse bees to re-populate the old brood box.Tomorrow I will split the old brood into neucs and hopefully get a couple of good mated queens later.Despite all the manipulations the bees were still pleasant to work with no aggression towards me.Shows what gentle stocks and nice weather can do to make beekeeping a good experience.

[Calum]

too true... Seems alot of work to do it that way. I tend to just move the hive to one side (break out all the swarm cells except those on one frame) and put a hive with a that frame with 2-3 queen cells on it + a frame of food, filled up with drawn comb... Sorts out the issue without needing to locate the queen...
Needs to be done while the bees are still flying well, so all the flying bees return to the old spot, and the hive that wanted to swarm no longer has the resources to do that (flying bees gone as if they had swarmed, young bees needed to raise whatever brood is still in the hive). Its a good idea to also remove excessive closed brood , or they'll want to swarm again as soon as thats hatched... As I learnt this year... twice...

1 frame closed brood = 3 frames of bees when they hatch.

[lindsay s]

The weather has warmed up here as well. Late this afternoon I opened up a hive found the queen and set about marking her. Like Grizzly I also used a crown of thorns but unfortunately instead of a nice neat dot, the queen ended up with a yellow splodge. I didn’t press the crown in hard enough and the queen moved just as I was applying the marking pen. This is not the first time this has happened and I have lost the odd queen in the past because of heavy-handed marking. Hopefully she will be OK and I’ll check the hive in a few days. I’m not nimble fingered so practising on drones would make no difference to me. Only another five queens left to mark!!!

[Jon]

I used to mark like this but I now prefer the plunger cage. Just steer the queen in using your fingers by laying the cage in front of her. You can then walk away and mark without the bees around you. It is easy to clip as well as she will stick a wing out through the cross wires if you maneuver her gently with the plunger. I think I have all mine marked and clipped now. I have one in a nuc which is marked but I can't remember if I clipped her last year.

[gavin]

I used to use that crown of thorns from Thornes and sometimes had Lindsay's problem. Gave one of my pair of them to Ma Grizzly in BC and the other one never gets used now. For the last few years I've just picked her up by a wing or sometimes the pair of wings. Most people have the dexterity to just grab her, easier when she bends over to look into a cell. That means that it is easier if your queens are behaving normally - so no smoke and gentle handling with no gloves or latex ones. If you want to trim a wing it ought to be easy to do before you let her go.

Easy to do, needs no equipment so you're not fumbling for small items that were put in one of those safe places that Wraith mentioned, and with the added benefit of impressing watching beginners even more than otherwise. You know it makes sense. :p

[GRIZZLY]

Calum I particularly wanted to find that queen.Previously she had always eluded me so was never marked.She was the only queen that I had never marked so now they are all marked and so much easier to find.

[Rosie]

We saw 20 C today so the bees were going at it like crazy. Because it's been so awful here we are still in the thick of dandelions and sycamore. The hawthorn has not yet opened so I am hoping that this late season might just provide another elusive hawthorn flow. It's about 8 years since I last had hawthorn honey. I can't remember what it tasted like but I do remember thinking it was good stuff.

Rosie

[Jon]

A week ago in cold weather mine were all over the hawthorn collecting pollen but they seem to be ignoring it now. The sycamore seems to be a big attraction here. If you stand under a tree it sounds like there is a swarm in it.

[Neils]

We're supposed to hit 26 on Friday, time to make up those last few frames and open up a couple of Nucs as bait hives I feel.

[gavin]

Don't hold back. Do it now, before you go to bed. The swarms are pinging off the trees up here.

[Jon]

Do you think he could hit the nail on the head at this time of night!

Mine are not making queen cells yet, touch wood. I have found a couple which looked like supersedure attempts.

[Neils]

Don't hold back. Do it now, before you go to bed. The swarms are pinging off the trees up here.

I've got 3 hives made up, with frames ready to go in the back garden still, entrances open just in case. there are 4 current bait hives up on the allotment and we've had two swarms in the 30 minutes when it stopped raining a couple of weeks ago. I'm expecting it to go bonkers this week but, my one busy hive is ok at the moment. No sign of queen cells last weekend and I was using it to boost a couple of the smaller hives so, touch wood, it's not thinking about it just yet.

[Neils]

We didn't graft today in the end, other chappie decided that he didn't have any hives strong enough to donate brood or bees.

My main hive is now on three supers and looking like it's getting ready to start preparing to swarm.this week there are play cups everywhere, some with eggs, none with larvae. There's still a little bit of chalk brood, but nothing too serious, 5-6 chalkiness in 9 14x12 frames of brood. I took another frame of sealed brood out into one of the smaller colonies and replaced it with comb and removed some drone brood to check for varroa, reassuringly, very few mites on the floor and none found at all in the drone brood. Hopefully the extra space and a box of empty frames to draw out might make them think twice about wanting to swarm. I'll be checking it very carefully on Friday though.

The recipient of the donor brood is now starting to come along nicely and might even be ready for a super next week, the extra bees have allowed the queen to more than double the brood nest (over and above the donated frame). They had a single frame of brood and about 3 frames of bees, this week they're up to four frames of brood and covering 5-6 frames.

The swarm seems to be coming along nicely too, plenty of brood but no sign of the queen I marked last week, lots of eggs on the frames though so I'm assuming she's in there somewhere.

[Neils]

Today I have mostly been rendering wax. I tidied up the apiary yesterday after our fencing escapades last week and part of that was sorting out the solar extractor. I'm not sure whats more annoying, extracting honey or cleaning up wax :)

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with the stuff. Honey comb wax I'm happy to but back into hives, stuff out of the solar extractor which is mainly old brood combs less so.

[Bridget]

Did an inspection on Friday. Had been worrying about it for day's. It was all rather dull. Saw nothing much, no queen, no queen cells just some old play caps I think, they were a bit brown, not fresh looking, and no eggs. We searched hard, the bees were well behaved but couldn't see a single egg. Some stores frames in brood box did seem a bit light but we were feeding them before the inspection. There was honey in the super, not capped, and most of the foundation in the supers was drawn out. It was busy, both supers and brood box, and all seemed quite happy so I think the sun was too bright and we were not looking properly, for the eggs. Lots of larvae. Uploading a quick pic of what we think are play caps which were on the bottom of the frame. But not big enough for a queen.
1076

[Neils]

When you say you couldn't see eggs, do you mean anywhere in the hive or in the play cups?

[Bridget]

No where in the hive

[Neils]

OK,

The first question as it's in your previous post. How hard were you looking for eggs and is it possible/likely that you simply missed them?

Not seeing eggs or the queen (is she marked?) is not a good sign.

You saw larvae so you know there must have been a queen in there over the last 9 days prior to the inspection as they're not yet sealed. When was the last inspection prior to that one and did you see her then?

[beeanne]

Agree with Nellie that no queen + no eggs isn't good news. But just now, with a good sized active colony IMO it's more likely that you've missed eggs or a queen cell than that neither are there - not trying to be rude about yr egg-spotting skills or anything!
But if you'd damaged or killed the queen (or they'd swarmed) then you'd expect to see some sort of attempt at rearing a new queen.

[Jimbo]

If you think the queen is missing and no eggs The may have swarmed and you may have a virgin queen in the box. The way to check is to put a frame with eggs from another colony in and see if queen cells are drawn. If nothing happens then there is still a queen in there

[Neils]

I think before we jump the gun here there is a key line in Bridget's original post:

and all seemed quite happy so I think the sun was too bright and we were not looking properly, for the eggs.

Which is why I asked my first question :)

I think the first thing Bridget needs to do, assuming that it's possible/likely that she didn't actively establish that there were eggs in the colony is do just that on the next inspection AND preferably find the queen just to make sure.

I agree with beeanne that if the queen had got damaged, killed or the hive had swarmed that Bridget should have seen some evidence for this given that they were looking for signs the colony might be intending to swarm.

If you still can't see eggs on the next inspection and especially if you now cannot see larvae either, as they should all now be sealed if the colony is queenless, then I'd start to take that as a more reliable indicator that the queen might not be there rather than us all perhaps getting the wrong end of the stick from a forum post :)

[Bridget]

Thanks all. Yes We were looking for eggs along with queen cells and stores etc.
The queen is marked but we didn't see her last time either. However it's probably been about 5 weeks since we have seen her and lots of larvae so .... The last inspection was about 3 weeks prior.
The brood box and super were both very busy so don't think there could have been a swarm.
Have no other colony so Jimbos suggestion is ruled out.
I think maybe that being so concerned about Queen cells we weren't thorough enough looking for eggs. I shall do another inspection as soon as I can but it drizzled all day and the forecast is as bad for the next two so it maybe the weekend before I get a chance.

Is there no one on this forum from this neck of the woods? Anyone coming on holiday here soon? Anyone? :0)

On a different tack, saw a mining ( or is it miner) bee yesterday scurrying down her sandy hole. Never seen one before. Didn't know they existed till Mr Wikipedia put me right.

[Jimbo]

Last time I was in your area I noticed beehives in a garden just outside Aviemore which is just down the road from you so there are other beekeepers in your area. You could ask Phil McAnespie to look at the SBA members list to see if there is anybody you could contact for advice.

[Bridget]

Well did another inspection today as it was warm and sunny. The good news is there was stacks of larvae, a lot of it tiny, like 4 days and saw some emerging, so there is a queen in there somewhere, but we still didn't see her. We are obviously also rubbish at seeing eggs and need new glasses. Brood box was chockablock with brood and virtually no stores so have given them another brood box. A bit of a quandary whether to put it over or under the existing one - decided under was more logical. Were we right?
The super was really heavy and full of bees and every frame bar one had uncapped honey, so added another super as well.
So today's questions - we saw a few (under 10) larvae in the super, not capped yet. What's is that about?

Also some small queen caps but no larvae and not drawn down in the super..
Also larvae in the old queen caps, not sealed, in the brood box.

Perhaps this is because they were so crowded. Hopefully the extra space will sort that.
Bees fairly quiet in the brood box and angelic in the super.
Thinking of starting my own thread for all these questions".......

[Neils]

Well did another inspection today as it was warm and sunny. The good news is there was stacks of larvae, a lot of it tiny, like 4 days and saw some emerging, so there is a queen in there somewhere, but we still didn't see her. We are obviously also rubbish at seeing eggs and need new glasses. Brood box was chockablock with brood and virtually no stores so have given them another brood box. A bit of a quandary whether to put it over or under the existing one - decided under was more logical. Were we right?

Sounds better :)
I don't use double brood myself but under the current brood box sounds ok to me. If you think about it bees start at the top and work downwards normally, we just muck things around a bit with supers.

But like I say, I don't use double brood so someone might come along in a minute and tell me I've got it all wrong.


The super was really heavy and full of bees and every frame bar one had uncapped honey, so added another super as well.
So today's questions - we saw a few (under 10) larvae in the super, not capped yet. What's is that about?

Obvious question to ask is do you have a queen excluder on?

What sort do you use? Framed? Plastic, metal? Is it still in good condition or is it possible that the queen might have got through it?



Also some small queen caps but no larvae and not drawn down in the super..
larvae in the old queen caps, not sealed, in the brood box.
Larvae in the queen cells? If so you should think about doing an artificial swarm ASAP.

Giving them space and leaving them to it Is going to result in a swarm. Once you see larvae in the queen cells they mean business.



Perhaps this is because they were so crowded. Hopefully the extra space will sort that.
Bees fairly quiet in the brood box and angelic in the super.
Thinking of starting my own thread for all these questions".......

Go for it, you're more than welcome to start a new thread and sometimes that might mean you get more replies.

[gavin]

Larvae in the queen cups/cells in the brood chamber? Oooops - emergency, emergency! As Nellie says, act ASAP. You may have a couple of days before you lose a swarm.

Instead of nadiring another brood box (I'd always add on top myself) use it to do an artificial swarm. Then, whatever the books say, check the splits a couple of days later then after another 3-4 days or so for additional queen cells in the queen-right half otherwise you may still lose a swarm.

G.

[The Drone Ranger]

If you think about it bees start at the top and work downwards normally

.

Hi Nellie
Bristol?
is that in Australia then?

[Neils]

Yours don't?

All mine start at the top of the frames, foundation or not and work downwards. I hate to bring it up, but it's the key principle in the management of Warré hives too, you add new boxes to the bottom.

I don't personally like honey in old brood comb so I stick supers, as the name suggests, on top of the brood.

[Bridget]

Yes we have a QE, metal, framed, goog condition. Here is a photo of the larvae in the super and these are obviously newly made.

1081


The queen cells were small, not elongated to accommodate a Queen.
1082
These look like old and are also not elongated. Do they extend them as the new queen grows?

To do an AS you have to find the Queen first, is that right?

Why would they want to swarm when she is obviously laying so well. Last week I remarked in my notes that she had plenty of room in the brood box for laying. Today there was hardly any space left.

I read on a thread here that Adam put a second brood box below but perhaps he has a different hive set up.

[Neils]

The queen cells were small, not elongated to accommodate a Queen.

These look like old and are also not elongated. Do they extend them as the new queen grows?

Yes.



To do an AS you have to find the Queen first, is that right?

Basically, yes. You need to know where the queen is.

See the triangle(s) in the swarm thread. You have to break that triangle and to do that you need to know where the Queen is.

See also the finding the queen thread.




Why would they want to swarm when she is obviously laying so well. Last week I remarked in my notes that she had plenty of room in the brood box for laying. Today there was hardly any space left.

I read on a thread here that Adam put a second brood box below but perhaps he has a different hive set up.
You've kind of answered your own question here.

Swarming is of sex for bees. Once they've decided that they're swarming not even a cold shower is going to put them off. No (from the beekeeper) definitely doesn't mean No to the bees. You're past Swarm Control, you're now into Swarm Management/Prevention.

You need to do an artificial swarm.

You might get away with cutting the queen cells down if you can't get help within the next day or two but it is only buying you time and you need to be planning an artificial swarm. just cutting queen cells down IS NOT swarm control

[Jon]

In the first picture that looks more like a drone cell than a queen cell.

[gavin]

Drone cells, as Jon says, above the queen excluder. They may be from eggs laid by (unfertilised) workers, though egg-moving is also a possibility. If they are raised and at right angles to the vertical, they are drone.

On the bottom bar (pointing down) you have one partially developed queen cell and one that looks like a sealed queen cell. Swarms depart around (even before) sealing time so they may have gone already and if not you should try to stop them this morning! As I've been finding, some depart a couple of days before sealing especially after you've done an artificial swarm and they're in a hurry to get on with it. Often you will, however, still find the old queen after the first is sealed in many colonies approaching swarming. If I remember right, the source you got your bees from have been selling carniolans which do have a reputation to be swarmy.

Timing (days):

Egg Open Sealed
--- ----- --------

3 - 5 - 8

So an egg in a queen cup can give a sealed Q cell and swarm 5 days later.

A colony in hurry can use a 1-2-day (? corrections anyone?) worker larva and have a sealed cell 3-4 days later.

Time to act! Good luck ...

Gavin

[Bridget]

Thanks all. Have spoken to the beekeeper who sold me the bees and she suggested doing a Demaree if we still can't find the Queen. She talked me through it so we are going ahead with that this afternoon when hopefully it will have warmed up a bit.
Now back to icing the Jubilee cake - its all go around here.

[Bridget]

Drone cells, as Jon says, above the queen excluder. They may be from eggs laid by (unfertilised) workers, though egg-moving is also a possibility. If they are raised and at right angles to the vertical, they are drone.

On the bottom bar (pointing down) you have one partially developed queen cell and one that looks like a sealed queen cell. Swarms depart around (even before) sealing time so they may have gone already and if not you should try to stop them this morning! As I've been finding, some depart a couple of days before sealing especially after you've done an artificial swarm and they're in a hurry to get on with it. Often you will, however, still find the old queen after the first is sealed in many colonies approaching swarming

Gavin

What do we do with the drone cells above the QE- remove them?

With queen cells in the second picture I think I wasn't too concerned because the sealed one was not at all elongated enough to accommodate a queen. In pictures of them they look long and thin and this one is short and stubby.

Once they have decided to go will they still swarm on a cold damp day?

Bridget

[gavin]

After the drones hatch they are likely to fly one day when you lift the crownboard.

Queen cells can be short and stubby or long and thin - cells of all types can accommodate a viable queen so unless that wasn't a sealed cell but something damaged as you lifted the frame then I think that you have lost or are about to lose a swarm.

Swarms do need some respite from poor weather to go but don't need it to be especially warm and sunny. Once the sun comes out and you think it is warm enough to open the hives the swarm could be off.

[gavin]

A Demaree could be a good idea if you can provide some unused comb for the bottom box, one frame of open brood and stores, other empty frames or foundation, and shake off all the bees into that box. The rest of it upstairs having removed all queen cells (including any wee ones tucked half out of sight) and all queen cups with eggs in. It is a bit invasive though, and having a marked queen and the ability to find her when you need to is better.

G.

[Bridget]

What I learnt today ...... You may think you have 2 queen cells but if you do a PROPER inspection and clear all the bees off all the frames you might find you have 22 queen cells.
I saw eggs today but still no Queen so we did a Demaree and now will wait and see. I

[The Drone Ranger]

Yours don't?

All mine start at the top of the frames, foundation or not and work downwards. I hate to bring it up, but it's the key principle in the management of Warré hives too, you add new boxes to the bottom.

I don't personally like honey in old brood comb so I stick supers, as the name suggests, on top of the brood.

Usually they like going up
thats why you need a queen excluder
If they went down you wouldn't need to bother :)

[Neils]

I feel we're probably arguing semantics here, but if you dropped a package of bees into a double brood hive (or two supers for that matter) you'd expect them to draw combs in the lower box first and work up from there?

[chris]

I feel we're probably arguing semantics here,

I don’t think it’s just a problem of semantics.
I can think of 3 elements that will govern what the bees will do:

1)They will normally build where space is available;
2)They normally prefer to store honey as far as possible from the entrance;
3) The speed of development of the brood nest.

Take a simple brood box. The bees go to the top and build comb downwards. The honey is stored in arcs above the brood, and on outer frames. When the hive is full, if the beekeeper does nothing, either the queen slows down laying or the bees swarm. If the beekeeper adds a super, the bees go up to the top of the super and build downwards. If there is no foundation to dictate cell size, then the cells in the super will be larger than normal brood cells because the bees generally build bigger cells to store honey. The queen who has no room in the brood box goes up and lays in the super, but with the larger cells she lays drone eggs. There is the beginning of the rugby ball top of a nest, but as room becomes available again in the brood box, she goes back down and continues her egg laying there, the drones come out, and the super is used for the honey, stored at the top. The nest doesn’t move upwards.
If instead of adding a super the beekeeper adds a box underneath, as with a Warré, then the bees continue to build downwards, the brood nest gradually follows the building direction and descends, leaving space at the top where the bees store the honey. On a big flow, the brood nest cannot move down quickly enough to leave enough space for the incoming nectar which the bees want to put above the brood nest and the Warré can then become the swarm machine that certain beekeepers criticise. In this case, if the beekeeper who has been nadiring also adds a super, the brood nest can continue to move downwards and at the same time the bees can use the super up above for the extra honey. In fact they go up to build down and go down to build down at the same time.
So, I would say that the bees always start by going to the highest place available and then build downwards. Sometimes they go up to do this and sometimes they go down to do it, depending on what the beekeeper gives them.
But the brood nest *wants* to go downwards.

I’d be interested to know what happens in a case where the entrance is at the top. Would the bees even choose such a hive possibility?

[GRIZZLY]

Bees will use a top entrance.I've taken bees from fallen trees where the centre has been completely rotten and they gained entrance to the nest via a knot hole adjacent to the top of the nest.The bees hung their combs from just under the entrance hole and these went downward for about 2 1/2 feet.I've also seen photographs of some American hives with top entrances.

[GRIZZLY]

Collected a lovely swarm last night.Flew into the lower branches of a Budlia,just at head height.Must be one of the easiest I've ever collected.Hived them when it was almost dark then fed them heavily this morning.They just about filled a National brood box.The parent colony was the last on my list for examination and got delayed by a couple of days due to inclement weather.They must have started Q.cells the day after my last inspection.Nothing lost tho' cos' they will produce a nice young Queen which will hopefully successfully mate well,however time will tell.

[Adam]

I had two calls yesterday about two swarms in a nearby village. The same village where a sold nuc went to a month ago and the new beekeeper also bought a nuc from elsewhere. A conincidence surely?

[chris]

A couple of weeks ago we had a late hard frost. I've been checking lots of the lime today. No flowers anywhere, no bractée. Gonna be no lime honey, which is paramount to saying there'll only be honey for the bees this year :mad:.

[HJBee]

Same happened with Horse Chestnut in my Village.

[voytech104]

How to you know what bees are feeding on in the exact moment or day? It is quite hard for me to follow my bees - I gave up after getting through the fence and falling over a ditch ;)


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[Jon]

You can look at the colour of the pollen as the bees enter the hive and compare the colour to what is in flower at certain times of the year. Kirk's guide to pollen loads of the honey bee is probably the best known pollen book.

[gavin]

Also the amount and position of pollen on the body of the bee, the size of the pollen loads, and .... great fun this one, interpreting their waggle dances. Best seen earlier in the day before they all learn where to go. One second per km, angle wrt the sun, you know the thing.

[Neils]

If you want to be really anal about it I'll post the formula for working out the distance, the first second of dancing is far more precise about distance than subsequent seconds if memory serves me right.

Making the most of a break in the rain and just finished my inspections. You can tell the flows stopped! Good opportunity to really see which colonies are good candidates for queen rearing. I might get a chance to make up some grafts yet!

Fed the brood sides of my AS after a week of rain the 14x12 looks like they've had a drone massacre and there wasn't a lot of food in evidence.

Reduced them back down to a single sealed queen cell.

The swarm I picked up a few weeks back seems to be expanding nicely but after consistent drops of 30+ mites, some dwv in evidence and no drone brood yet I've given them an apiguard tray as they're not likely to need a super this year. I'll see what happens over the course of the first tray and take it from there.

Just watching a couple of bees taking water from some compost filled plant pots on the plot next door.

Still no proper queen rearing on the go, but I now have three queen right hives, two with supers, one with honey. A Nuc and a 14x12 rearing new queens. The second hive looks like its building up nicely to start bringing in some nectar.

[Bumble]

I'll post the formula for working out the distance
Yes please. :)

Note I removed the anal bit!

[The Drone Ranger]

Yes please. :)

Note I removed the anal bit!

I found myself in a bee dance the other day when one got down the back of my trousers fortunately didn't make as far as the anal bit but still hurt

[Neils]

Sometimes you don't realise what you've got. I spotted this while going back through some of the clips I took trying to deal with the swarm earlier today:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueY-rrlQ130

As for the formula:

(1800*(Duration^1.9)/(1+(1.3*(Duration^0.9))))

[Bumble]

As for the formula:

(1800*(Duration^1.9)/(1+(1.3*(Duration^0.9))))
Maybe I shouldn't have asked. I'm not sure what ^ means. :o

[Neils]

It's exponentiation. i.e. 5^3 (I can't super script the font which is how it more normally appears) is 5x5x5 or 125.

If you were to paste that into, for example, excel or numbers for the Mac users as a function (put a = then paste the formula) and replace 'duration' with a cell reference containing the duration in seconds it will convert to a distance of meters.

i.e. if you pasted in cell "B2" in Excel


=(1800*(A2^1.9)/(1+(1.3*(A2^0.9))))

And dragged it down, you'd get something along the lines of:



Duration Distance
-------------------------
0.5 284.2644483
1 782.6086957
1.5 1353.890294
2 1960.905288
2.5 2588.612088
3 3229.585765
3.5 3879.677848
4 4536.36295
4.5 5198.003234
5 5863.483299
5.5 6532.013396
6 7203.016304
6.5 7876.058834
7 8550.808538
7.5 9227.005349
8 9904.44241
8.5 10582.95278
9 11262.39999
9.5 11942.67121
10 12623.67218

You don't have to use half second intervals of course, you can be as precise as you like, off the top of my head I can't remember to what degree the bees use, but I do know that it's believed they'll "watch" a number of dance circuits and essentially use the average figure for both distance and bearing.

[Bumble]

Oh! Spreadsheets. :o

[Neils]

A decent calculator should be able to do exponent functions for you :) I'm certainly not good enough at maths to do it on my own let alone explain how the formula works :D

[voytech104]

I need to brag a little ;)
It took me 2.5 hours but satisfaction is mine ;)
1087


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[gavin]

Beautiful. And distinctive, two good qualities in a hive.

[Neils]

Worth Bragging about I think. Nice Job.

[HJBee]

Did you really do this all from scratch? Impressive!

[voytech104]

Yes I did ;)

Next some painting tomorrow, roofs, crown boards and floors. Need to work out cutting list.


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[Calum]

Respect, looks really cool, hope it is light too! Anyone wanting plans for an easy build (https://bienenkunde.uni-hohenheim.de/uploads/media/einfachbeute_04.pdf)(although there are much easier versions of the floor) just adjust for your frame length and depth. Based on a Zander 477 mm x 220 mm frame for ten frames width (you can leave that the same if you like). I'd not bother with the last page - a feeding casette is a faf and not really as useful as an extra magazine..
The easiest floor for varroa control is a u shape nailed to a n shape with a mesh sandwiched inbetween if you get my drift..

[voytech104]

It is not too bad - i'll try to weigh those brood boxes tomorrow.

Question regarding adding second brood box:

I have strong colony with 12 frames full in brood box. 1 super have had 9 frames drawn and 80% full of honey. I have added 2nd super - rearranged frames so I have 4 frames of honey in super above brood box and 4 frames of empty foundation in the middle. In 2nd super I have another 5 frames of honey and 5 frames of empty foundation.
- How can I add second brood box?
- Are all those frames wont be spread out too much? (i'm thinking about the temperature).

i hope that I make some sense ;)



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[Calum]

super frames have a different height than your brood frames?
First I would have personally just added the second super empty under the upper (full) one.
The bees will and to clear space in the lower super to make space for the queen to lay in - they dont know she can't, so will be employed shifting honey about instead of gathering it. I figure..

[voytech104]

Ok - so I'll shift all full supers to the top.

Then I'll add second brood box on top of 1st.

I'll shift 4 frames of brood one up, and put foundation in. Is it ok?

Wont it affect temperature too much? Do they need certain temperature to evaporate water from honey in super?




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[Calum]

if the brood box looks like thishttp://www.harz-imkerei.de/images/beute.jpg with plenty of closed brood (1 frame closed brood = 3frames bees when hatched)
and not like this so much http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1130/4722073456_87787084e5.jpg
then should be fine

[Jon]

Beautiful looking hive compared to some of my correx monstrosities!

Just back in from another evening with a beginner group and some of the queen rearing group.
We got another 17 cells into apideas and 4 more cells went off to requeen colonies.

20 more will be ready for Apideas on Saturday.

[Calum]

cant write to u Jon your inbox is full...

[Jon]

cleared now

[GRIZZLY]

Took the roof off a recently hived swarm to check the level of feed.They had emptied the feed and were busy drawing comb.The heat coming off the bees thro' the holes in the crown board is quite amazing.Will take a thermometer up with me to check what temperature they have risen to.Whats the optimum temperature for wax and cell building ?.

[Neils]

Between 33 and 36 degrees C I believe.

[chris]

Rather too many scout bees looking at my chimney this morning. I've put 2 bait hives (a 5 frame nuc and a 10 frame hive) nearby and that is also receiving lots of visitors.Fingers crossed. Or should I spray some insecticide up the chimney? Joke joke joke..........................

[Jon]

If the scouts are from your own bees you could get the scissors out and find your queen.
Might be a good time to light a smokey fire.

[chris]

No, they're coming from down the valley, so are either feral or René's. Can't light a fire as I know that chimney is full of old comb and so I'll be smoked out before the bees.And I'd never stick my head in one of René's hives.:(
Do you think scouts would try to protect a prospective home? I've been watching what looked like guard bee behaviour, with a little *in-fighting*.

[Trog]

I was alerted to a swarm yesterday by an enquiring bee at the kitchen window ... and found it in the blackthorn by the apiary. Safely hived. Had hoped to check hives this morning but very cold. Sun's out now so will take a look after lunch maybe.

[Wraith]

My extractor has arrived very happy :D I have all new queens on order. And I now have a second farmer happy to have bees. So Now have two sites.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d5cdebda-e10f-ffe5.jpg

[drumgerry]

Nice extractor! My bees are currently self-extracting each cell of honey and consuming it.

ps - I have the same mash tun as you! Brewing a hefe in the next couple of weeks.

[Wraith]

Just done 22 gallon on Sunday and need to brew again next weekend. :) I'm having difficulties with mine not wanting to stay in the hives and not capping the supers

[drumgerry]

That's quite a brew length! (oo er) Just a cornys-worth for me. Takes me long enough to get through that. All thoughts of swarming I think are on the back burner with mine and looking them today a couple of colonies might even need fed if the weather doesn't pick up.

[Wraith]

That was 4 brews in 13hrs all seperate 25l batches

[drumgerry]

Your system must be pretty slick - it takes me most of a day to do one batch!

[Wraith]

Are you on www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk by any chance?

[drumgerry]

Used to post a little on jimsbeerkit but I think I may be a lurking member of a few of the forums.

[Wraith]

Here's a link to the brewday thread http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=26005

[Jon]

Put another 10 cells into apideas this morning.
I checked grafts I did on Thursday into two cell raisers and there are a good number started, over 25, maybe a few more.

I did another 45 grafts this afternoon in the rain into another two colonies so hopefully will get a few more started from these.

We have 44 apideas with virgin queens set out on stands at the association site and another 10 with cells due to hatch on Monday.

1090

These are all in the shade of a huge lime tree.

Edit
One of the group members put more photos on Flic.kr

http://flic.kr/p/cfaNB1

http://flic.kr/p/cfah8j

http://flic.kr/p/cf9QQq

Only one of those apideas is mine and that has the virgin which I retrieved from a cell raiser colony after it pulled down 7 cells from a cell bar. I have 20 of my own apideas set out in my garden and at my allotment.
My garden is 1.3 miles from the drone colonies at the association site and 2.6 miles from the allotment where I have 9 more colonies producing drones. Would be great to get an area of a few square miles completely saturated with AMM drones.

[Neils]

Another carrier bag of sugar bought as we're back to solid rain again and there's another two hives now starting to run out of food. The local shopkeepers think I'm mad.