| Treated 06/01/13 | |||
| HIVE | Seam | Count on | 10/01/13 |
| 1 | 4 | 8 | |
| 2 | 4 | 2 | |
| 3 | 6+6 | 0 | rose |
| 4 | 4+3 | 2 | |
| 6 | 5 | 4 | |
| 7 | 5.5 | 18 | box removed |
| 8 | 5 | 13 | water in hive – bees shook to 1+1/2 |
| 9 | 5 | 4 | |
| 10 | 5+5 | 6 | brood and ½ |
| 11 | 4+5 | 15 | |
| 13 | 5 | 1 | fed |
| 17 | 6 | 8 | lots of debris – removed top box bees shook out fed |
| 18 | 5+2 | 15 | fed |
| B | 5 | 3 | |
| D | 6 | 4 | fed |
Monday 4 February 2013
oxalic acid 2013
here are the results for Lydney, sorry no time for proper post have some photos will try add latter
Thursday 19 April 2012
More rain so a Quiz
The only activity we did on the bees was a treatment for Nosema using the very strong solution of VitaGold - 10ml per seem of bees of a mixture of 450ml syrup to 50 vita gold.
It was another day we could not get onto the bees, so we had a quiz here are the questions.
Beekeeping Quiz.
1) How many days does a worker bees spend as a unsealed larvae?
2) How many days does a Drone take from egg to hatching?
3) How many days does a Drone take from an egg to become mature?
4) Name a notifiable pest (to beekeepers) not currently located in the UK?
5) What brood disease is sometimes called rattling comb?
6) Which brood disease looks like a chinese slipper?
7) How many legs does a varroa mite have?
8) Which notifiable brood disease is most obvious on sealed cells.?
9) Name a possible control method for EFB which does not involve destruction.?
10) Name the three elements, one of which must be separated when doing swarm control? (3)
11) Name three swarm control methods (3)
12) Name Four hive styles (4)
13) Name the two types of wax moths (2)
14) What is the minimum recommended number of bees in a sample for a Nosema test
15) When assessing a queen for rearing purposes name three attributes you might look for in your queen (3)
16) Name an important wild food plant for bees in our area in Spring, Summer, Autumn (3)
17) Name three spacing method for frames (3)
18) What temperature will honey start to melt at in ceclicus?
19) what temperature will wax start to melt at in ceclicus?
20) Tie break What was the approximate total main honey crop of Lydney Apiary in 2010
It was another day we could not get onto the bees, so we had a quiz here are the questions.
Beekeeping Quiz.
1) How many days does a worker bees spend as a unsealed larvae?
2) How many days does a Drone take from egg to hatching?
3) How many days does a Drone take from an egg to become mature?
4) Name a notifiable pest (to beekeepers) not currently located in the UK?
5) What brood disease is sometimes called rattling comb?
6) Which brood disease looks like a chinese slipper?
7) How many legs does a varroa mite have?
8) Which notifiable brood disease is most obvious on sealed cells.?
9) Name a possible control method for EFB which does not involve destruction.?
10) Name the three elements, one of which must be separated when doing swarm control? (3)
11) Name three swarm control methods (3)
12) Name Four hive styles (4)
13) Name the two types of wax moths (2)
14) What is the minimum recommended number of bees in a sample for a Nosema test
15) When assessing a queen for rearing purposes name three attributes you might look for in your queen (3)
16) Name an important wild food plant for bees in our area in Spring, Summer, Autumn (3)
17) Name three spacing method for frames (3)
18) What temperature will honey start to melt at in ceclicus?
19) what temperature will wax start to melt at in ceclicus?
20) Tie break What was the approximate total main honey crop of Lydney Apiary in 2010
Sunday 15 April 2012
Winter Blues
Well we are deep into spring now, so how did our apiary come through the winter.
There was one loss, early in the year due to a drone layer, another loss in about February, (not enough bees/ no particular reason. And ??? well "?" because the THREE dates we have been down the apiary so far this year it has been to cold to look at bees correctly, I think two more are unlikely to make it.
Anyway the poor weather has given us chance to do some other activties down at the apiary. We have done some Nosema tests and found it so are now treating that with Vita Gold as per instruction on the bottle. Praticed getting our sample of bees, done some acetic acid, and lets of talking.
There was one loss, early in the year due to a drone layer, another loss in about February, (not enough bees/ no particular reason. And ??? well "?" because the THREE dates we have been down the apiary so far this year it has been to cold to look at bees correctly, I think two more are unlikely to make it.
Anyway the poor weather has given us chance to do some other activties down at the apiary. We have done some Nosema tests and found it so are now treating that with Vita Gold as per instruction on the bottle. Praticed getting our sample of bees, done some acetic acid, and lets of talking.
Thursday 19 January 2012
Oxalic Acid 2012
After a very successful demonstration of how to make oxalic acid from crystals and everybody had a practice with water on an empty hive. The Oxalic acid was applied to the hives on the 15th January 20121. Below are the results of the count which were done 4days and 2 hours after application.
As you can see the mite drop was very low. This is in direct contrast to my hives at home were the count on some hives was estimated at 300 after only 3 days. There were so many I could not count. Now for a little background info. At the Apiary in Lydney we used the treatment of APIVAR Life - whilst at home I used Hive Clean in the autumn. Okay this is no true test as I think I always have more mites at home than in the Lydney apiary - but it is interesting.
Another interesting thing to note is that the hive at Lydney which gave the highest drop by some way was hive 15. Thid hive I am planning to re-queen because of temper issues but they gave the best crop of honey! The theory normal is that the nastier hives bring in more honey as they are disrupted less but all the bees get looked through as much as any other. I shall let you draw your own conclusions.
| 4 day count | ||
| Hive | Seams | Mites |
| 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 2 | 5 | 1 |
| 3 | 5 | 0 |
| 4 | 5 | 1 |
| 5 | 3 | 2 |
| 9 | 3 | 2 |
| 10 | 4 | 0 |
| 11 | 6 | 3 |
| 12 | 3 | 1 |
| 13 | 7 | 1 |
| 14 | 1 | 0 |
| 15 | 6 | 22 |
| 16 | 14 | 3 |
| 17 | 5 | 1 |
| 18 | 6 | 2 |
| 19 | NO FLOOR | No count |
| 20 | Nuc | No count |
| 22 | 7 | 0 |
| D | Dead – Drone Layer |
As you can see the mite drop was very low. This is in direct contrast to my hives at home were the count on some hives was estimated at 300 after only 3 days. There were so many I could not count. Now for a little background info. At the Apiary in Lydney we used the treatment of APIVAR Life - whilst at home I used Hive Clean in the autumn. Okay this is no true test as I think I always have more mites at home than in the Lydney apiary - but it is interesting.
Another interesting thing to note is that the hive at Lydney which gave the highest drop by some way was hive 15. Thid hive I am planning to re-queen because of temper issues but they gave the best crop of honey! The theory normal is that the nastier hives bring in more honey as they are disrupted less but all the bees get looked through as much as any other. I shall let you draw your own conclusions.
Friday 3 June 2011
Catch up Thursday
Yesterday was a glorious warm and sunny evening so all the beekeeping jobs managed to get done here is a brief list.
1) Two colonies were set up ready for Q. Rearing, this effectively meant doing a vertical split on them, a new technique I learnt this year and will try and put it in a diagram for you at some point, very easy to do, difficult to explain. What at the end of the day we are looking for is a very strong q. less unit for raising our queens which will be doing next Thursday.
2) Swarm on the bottom of the Rose Hive - The swarm on the bottom of the mesh floor was only small most of the flying bees had already returned to the main hive. Therefore it was possible for us to find the marked and clipped queen pull her out and cage her. Once caged we made a nuc up for here (from a different hive, as we don't have a rose nuc box). And reintroduced her using a queen cage and some newspaper.
3) There seemed to be virgin queens flying around everywhere, as it has been two weeks since our inspections many of the queen cells where just popping out.
4) A lot of feeding and removing of empty supers went on because many of the bees were very low on stores, I expect we will have to undo all of that next week.
Finally to show nobody perfect, I had caged one of the queens whilst we were doing the manipulation, unfortunately I chose a queen cage I was not familiar with and whilst the queen was in my top pocket she walked straight out of the queen cage and and when I came to get her out I had to pick her of my suit..... thank goodness the bees never found her and she did not fall on the floor. Lesson to learn always know how a queen cage works before using it.
1) Two colonies were set up ready for Q. Rearing, this effectively meant doing a vertical split on them, a new technique I learnt this year and will try and put it in a diagram for you at some point, very easy to do, difficult to explain. What at the end of the day we are looking for is a very strong q. less unit for raising our queens which will be doing next Thursday.
2) Swarm on the bottom of the Rose Hive - The swarm on the bottom of the mesh floor was only small most of the flying bees had already returned to the main hive. Therefore it was possible for us to find the marked and clipped queen pull her out and cage her. Once caged we made a nuc up for here (from a different hive, as we don't have a rose nuc box). And reintroduced her using a queen cage and some newspaper.
3) There seemed to be virgin queens flying around everywhere, as it has been two weeks since our inspections many of the queen cells where just popping out.
4) A lot of feeding and removing of empty supers went on because many of the bees were very low on stores, I expect we will have to undo all of that next week.
Finally to show nobody perfect, I had caged one of the queens whilst we were doing the manipulation, unfortunately I chose a queen cage I was not familiar with and whilst the queen was in my top pocket she walked straight out of the queen cage and and when I came to get her out I had to pick her of my suit..... thank goodness the bees never found her and she did not fall on the floor. Lesson to learn always know how a queen cage works before using it.
Friday 27 May 2011
windy cold thrusday
Well yesterday was a bit too windy and cold to look at bees. Before going to Lydney I did a little beekeeping at home and it was not fun, at one point all the bees which were bussing around me suddenly disappeared and it was not of their choosing, a BIG gust of wind blew them away. First time I have ever noticed that.
Anyway at the apiary we did some feeding and then it was time for my maiden lecture/talk. As it was the first time that year we had not be able too look at the bees. The talk was on Apiary hygiene and it seemed to be well received for something that really is a dry subject. Covering the use of Washing soda, Acetic Acid, Wintering of Supers (for wax moth). Washing and sterilizing of bee keeping equipment.
Also I conducted a couple of tours of the shed and showed people where all the equipment is kept and how it should be left at the end of each session.
Finally I had a couple of the younger members draw me up an apiary plan so that now we know where each hive in the apiary is without having to wonder around looking at the numbers on the hive. This is now stuck to the door on the shed.
Lets hope we can get on the bees next week.
Anyway at the apiary we did some feeding and then it was time for my maiden lecture/talk. As it was the first time that year we had not be able too look at the bees. The talk was on Apiary hygiene and it seemed to be well received for something that really is a dry subject. Covering the use of Washing soda, Acetic Acid, Wintering of Supers (for wax moth). Washing and sterilizing of bee keeping equipment.
Also I conducted a couple of tours of the shed and showed people where all the equipment is kept and how it should be left at the end of each session.
Finally I had a couple of the younger members draw me up an apiary plan so that now we know where each hive in the apiary is without having to wonder around looking at the numbers on the hive. This is now stuck to the door on the shed.
Lets hope we can get on the bees next week.
Friday 20 May 2011
Swarms, Splits, merges, honey extration - one busy day
Yesterday at the Apiary was one VERY busy day. - firstly let me apologize for the lack of post this yea; the main reason in that I am taking my bee husbandry exam on the 6th June and therefore am taking every available minute to make preparations for it and to do some extra reading but hoping to getting back to publishing weekly after then. Anyway back to the story of the 19th May.
I was not there all day, so I will piece together what I know, and if I get bits wrong then so be it. The day started at 10am with a group of about 10 people and then any honey supers which had any honey had the bees brushed off them (no time to wait for rhombus boards - as it was rape honey.) At some point during the morning a swarm was found sitting at the bottom of a branch of a tree, it is thought that it was either from there from the day before or even a couple of days, anyway they were put temporally into a skep and left for the evening.
The Honey was transported to one of the members homes who had kindly agreed to extract the honey, and with the help of about 5 other people all the honey was uncapped and extracted and the work was all done by about 2.30 p.m. The honey was setting so quickly that it was only possible to put it through a course filter unless it was heated. Into the buckets it went and then offered for sale to members.
Evening sessions started as always on a Thursday at 6p.m. The first task of the evening was to do two separate merges of colonies so that we have two really strong colonies which we can use for queen rearing. This meant that we had two queens which needed a new home. The one queen was placed into a nuc, and the other into a queen cage, for use later.
Then all of a sudden a shout goes up, " has somebody lost any bees" and blow me down, about 30 of us had not seen a huge prime swarm just hanging from a hedge - they were so quite... unbelievable.. and to think every other week one of most first thoughts are to look around the apiary to see if there are any swarms. Well at the time it was really the last thing I wanted to discover as it was by now getting colder and the sun going down yet there was so much still to do.... but needs must into a cardboard box they went... and then off to a new home.
Also a number of hives seemed to be insistent on swarming so about another 3 nucs were made up....
now remember (luckily I did) that I have a mated queen in my pocket... well the thought was that the ROSE hive had gone queenless and we may need a queen, but it was a false alarm as this week there were lots of eggs she must just have gone off lay for a couple of weeks. Therefore no need for this queen in my pocket.... mmm what to do with her... well I decided with one of the splits instead of letting them rear their own queen we will introduce the mated queen, having removed all of the queen cells and the splitting meaning that they now had loads of room... we put a few layers of newspaper over the queen cage and introduced her, hope she is okay.
Well that is the edited version, I know some photos were taken of the big swarm so if I get any I will add them.
I was not there all day, so I will piece together what I know, and if I get bits wrong then so be it. The day started at 10am with a group of about 10 people and then any honey supers which had any honey had the bees brushed off them (no time to wait for rhombus boards - as it was rape honey.) At some point during the morning a swarm was found sitting at the bottom of a branch of a tree, it is thought that it was either from there from the day before or even a couple of days, anyway they were put temporally into a skep and left for the evening.
The Honey was transported to one of the members homes who had kindly agreed to extract the honey, and with the help of about 5 other people all the honey was uncapped and extracted and the work was all done by about 2.30 p.m. The honey was setting so quickly that it was only possible to put it through a course filter unless it was heated. Into the buckets it went and then offered for sale to members.
Evening sessions started as always on a Thursday at 6p.m. The first task of the evening was to do two separate merges of colonies so that we have two really strong colonies which we can use for queen rearing. This meant that we had two queens which needed a new home. The one queen was placed into a nuc, and the other into a queen cage, for use later.
Then all of a sudden a shout goes up, " has somebody lost any bees" and blow me down, about 30 of us had not seen a huge prime swarm just hanging from a hedge - they were so quite... unbelievable.. and to think every other week one of most first thoughts are to look around the apiary to see if there are any swarms. Well at the time it was really the last thing I wanted to discover as it was by now getting colder and the sun going down yet there was so much still to do.... but needs must into a cardboard box they went... and then off to a new home.
Also a number of hives seemed to be insistent on swarming so about another 3 nucs were made up....
now remember (luckily I did) that I have a mated queen in my pocket... well the thought was that the ROSE hive had gone queenless and we may need a queen, but it was a false alarm as this week there were lots of eggs she must just have gone off lay for a couple of weeks. Therefore no need for this queen in my pocket.... mmm what to do with her... well I decided with one of the splits instead of letting them rear their own queen we will introduce the mated queen, having removed all of the queen cells and the splitting meaning that they now had loads of room... we put a few layers of newspaper over the queen cage and introduced her, hope she is okay.
Well that is the edited version, I know some photos were taken of the big swarm so if I get any I will add them.
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