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  1. Megan Seymour visit to association apiary

    Megan Seymour gave 13 of us some expert tuition on what to look out for with regard to the foulbrood diseases.
    This was at our association apiary where we are doing the queen rearing.
    She looked through 6 colonies in all, with a break half way through where some of my apple wine was consumed by the majority of the attendees.

    Most of the colonies she looked at were mine or ones headed by queens I grafted and she kept saying things like,' If only I could find something ...

    Updated 26-05-2012 at 09:41 PM by Jon

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  2. Perfect weather for getting grafts started

    I did a stack of grafts yesterday into 5 queenright cellraisers and I have just checked them.
    There are a total of 75 cells started and I have another batch of 20 in a colony at my allotment I didn't have time to check today so maybe a few more there.
    You can't go wrong when the weather is perfect.
    One colony I grafted 35 into had started 32.
    There was one colony which had only started 6 or 7 so i transferred them to another frame to make it up to about 20 cells and put ...
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  3. Starting grafting 2012

    I set up a queenright cell raiser last Sunday and put a feeder on with weak syrup.
    I grafted 18 cells on Wednesday and when I checked on Saturday none had been started. I regrafted the frame and on checking today there were 5 cells started.
    I regrafted the rest of the frame again.
    The problem here is the weather as it was 8-11c maximums every day last week. Hopeless conditions for grafting.
    We have 3 other colonies set up now at the association apiary and I intend to ...
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  4. Stocking the association apiary

    We delivered 4 colonies of mine to the association apiary on Sunday morning.
    We now have 8 there which will produce the right sort of drones (AMM) for the breeding programme.

    Last year the apideas were all over my allotment, 70 at one point, but I am worried about falling out with the council due to the amount of beekeepers traipsing around the place. This year the plan is to centre the breeding programme around a site provided for us by the National Trust at Minnowburn on ...

    Updated 03-05-2012 at 09:17 PM by Jon

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  5. Checked 3 today

    Had a look at 3 I have at the bottom of the garden which I hope to move to the association apiary at the weekend as part of the queen rearing programme.
    All are strong now, one with 9 frames of brood and two with 7. I gave these ones supers a week ago.
    I marked and clipped a couple of queens.
    All had good stores and one had put a bit in the super.
    I removed a few frames and replaced them with drawn comb.
    These are possibly the best 3 colonies I have and I am a ...
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