Well, I can not believe it but May is almost over, so ends the saying for one more year "A swarm in May is worth a barrel load of Hay" or what ever it is. At the apiary this week..
It was a quieter week but still interesting.
1) we took of the rape Honey - only one super this year, there was a lot of debate about the best way to get the bees out of the super in only a couple of hours, what we tried was a rhobus clear, upside down on a super, and a few kicks to get the bees to move out, and in theory they should all leave. However I was very sceptical, and although I wish I was not proved right come after 10 and time to pick up the super, there were still bees in it. So back into the bee suit for me, and in the pitch black brushing the bees of... So Lesson learnt, next time we will do as I say and just brush them to start with... I must add was not pleasant doing it in the dark as you cannot see the bees so keep trapping them with your figures and hence getting stung!
2) the langstroth hive - these had beautifully drawn out the comb, but unfotunatly the queen has completed vanished and no eggs, so we have tried to introduce a sealed queen cell which we got from hive 18, which we split last week so had a few spare.
3) The ROSE hive: this is working well with the bees having drawn half of one of the box, with the queen laying, so more feed, and I am sure they will pick up and love their new home. Now there is brood the queen excluder at the bottom of the hive can be moved.
4) update on the nucs. At least 2 if not 3 of the nucs we had the "bleed" now what a funny expression, what it means basically is to remove one frame either brood or food and give them a frame of foundation, so that they do not out grow their boxes before we Sell them next week. I know one had a frame of brood put into the weaker hive which I beilive is hive 2.
5) At least 4 or 5 colloinies are now in lock down, for the next 2-3 weeks waiting for the new queens to go out an mate. so there is a bit less work now at the apiary.
Oh finally, - I wish I had a photo, but the hive 1 which we re-united last week, had drawn a hole perfect frame of wild comb of their crown board... because certain person who re-untinted them did not give them a full complement of frames. Therefore the wild comb honey and all in now wedge up on the crown board so they can take their honey back and the hive built up in to a double brood. We may just use the hive for queen rearing.
Friday 28 May 2010
Friday 21 May 2010
Shook Swarms at Lydney
Well if you missed yesterday session at the apiary then you missed a treat. It was a lovely hot sunny evening and it was a good job because we achieved a lot. We did two shook swarms. on hive 5 , planned for month ago and hive 3. One into a ROSE HIVE and the other into an langstroth. To do a shook swarm 1) Smoke heavily 2) leave for 5 mins. 3) Move hive from original site. 4) Find queen and place her in new box. 5) Shake all bees off into new hive. 6) Feed hive 7) don't forget to put queen excluder between floor and brood chamber so that she cannot get out
There were two more splits on hives. Hive 15 had swarmed and were hanging on the mesh floor. So this was sorted out. One of the splits from last week, was reunited with the original collony as there were no viable queen cells... with a debate on the merits of emergency queen cells.
Queen rearing - was a complete wash out, with not one been taken. Not sure why but we know one thing they were over fed. See photos, and video below. More beekeeping tommorow, Sunday and so on and so on.....
There were two more splits on hives. Hive 15 had swarmed and were hanging on the mesh floor. So this was sorted out. One of the splits from last week, was reunited with the original collony as there were no viable queen cells... with a debate on the merits of emergency queen cells.
Queen rearing - was a complete wash out, with not one been taken. Not sure why but we know one thing they were over fed. See photos, and video below. More beekeeping tommorow, Sunday and so on and so on.....
Queen Rearing Course at Hartbury
On the 15th May, day started early so that we could arrive at Hartbury College on time, indeed early. Oh yes by the way I have left it a week before posting this as I wanted to leave a fair reflection!
I must say that it was not a good start with Shirley, who was our "teacher" for the day turned up 20 mins, late.We then went into the classroom for the morning. Rather than any formal lecture Shirley led a general discussion about what we wanted for the day and some very basic methods of queen rearing, i.e. spliting the hive; and what we might want to achieve from rearing the queens. She then disappeared for another 40 mins to finish of the photocopy, whilst we talk amongst our selves. Then came back the notes and we had to organize them ourselves. I must say that the notes were actually very helpful after reading through them on my return, but the general discussion was well not as informative as I would like, needs work and having some of the equipment to hand would help greatly. Not a great start.
After lunch; we went down to the apiary at the college, and to be frank I was APPALLED at the state of it. There were hundreds of boxes which seem to have been slung any which way. There were greater wax moth damage, wood pecker damage, wax moth flying around the shed. No obvious hygiene method were being practiced, The comb in the bees was a black as pitch and we were told to save money it was just treated with acetic acid and re-used. No obvious records cards were being used and the memory was not that good. Anyway that is the bad points out of the way & we should not dwell on them.
The set up of the hives was done really well, which enable use to do all but one of the 5 main stages of queen rearing. 1) setting up the hive 2) setting up the hive again 3) grafting the bees 4) introduction of queen cells 5) checking to see if the queen has mated and is laying.
I know I have simplified it beyond beleif, but hey I am still learning not writing notes. There were a few minor hick-ups but overall the practical went well The most fun part was learning to graft lava with the chinese grafting tool, it was really good to know what size the lava should be and how best to get them out. We also had a go with the jenter method, and the Miller method.
Anyway I have taken photos and videos which I will just dump down here, and you can view as you wish.
I must say that it was not a good start with Shirley, who was our "teacher" for the day turned up 20 mins, late.We then went into the classroom for the morning. Rather than any formal lecture Shirley led a general discussion about what we wanted for the day and some very basic methods of queen rearing, i.e. spliting the hive; and what we might want to achieve from rearing the queens. She then disappeared for another 40 mins to finish of the photocopy, whilst we talk amongst our selves. Then came back the notes and we had to organize them ourselves. I must say that the notes were actually very helpful after reading through them on my return, but the general discussion was well not as informative as I would like, needs work and having some of the equipment to hand would help greatly. Not a great start.
After lunch; we went down to the apiary at the college, and to be frank I was APPALLED at the state of it. There were hundreds of boxes which seem to have been slung any which way. There were greater wax moth damage, wood pecker damage, wax moth flying around the shed. No obvious hygiene method were being practiced, The comb in the bees was a black as pitch and we were told to save money it was just treated with acetic acid and re-used. No obvious records cards were being used and the memory was not that good. Anyway that is the bad points out of the way & we should not dwell on them.
The set up of the hives was done really well, which enable use to do all but one of the 5 main stages of queen rearing. 1) setting up the hive 2) setting up the hive again 3) grafting the bees 4) introduction of queen cells 5) checking to see if the queen has mated and is laying.
I know I have simplified it beyond beleif, but hey I am still learning not writing notes. There were a few minor hick-ups but overall the practical went well The most fun part was learning to graft lava with the chinese grafting tool, it was really good to know what size the lava should be and how best to get them out. We also had a go with the jenter method, and the Miller method.
Anyway I have taken photos and videos which I will just dump down here, and you can view as you wish.
Wednesday 19 May 2010
Bee Safari
Well I promised you as summary of the Bee Safari, & thanks to David we have an excellent one, which includes some useful tips picked up on the day. I was particular taken by the idea that it takes 3 days for a swarm to use up all the food in their tummies. Any way you can read about the BEE SAFARI
It has been a busy few days of beekeeping, I have looked at bees everyday! for a week now and some much to share, but just not the time to post..... and OH Hell, I must write my piece for the newsletter! so much to do not enough time. Anyway I promise you soon that I will give you some video and photo from my queen rearing course at Hartbury college last Saturday.
P.S. Off topic I know; but I did a course today for work all about improving websites, and optimsing them, and a little about what they call Social Media... so I thought I would give you a link to the beekeeping books at Stella Books where I work be warned there is only one beekeeping book in stock at the moment; not something we specialize in.
It has been a busy few days of beekeeping, I have looked at bees everyday! for a week now and some much to share, but just not the time to post..... and OH Hell, I must write my piece for the newsletter! so much to do not enough time. Anyway I promise you soon that I will give you some video and photo from my queen rearing course at Hartbury college last Saturday.
P.S. Off topic I know; but I did a course today for work all about improving websites, and optimsing them, and a little about what they call Social Media... so I thought I would give you a link to the beekeeping books at Stella Books where I work be warned there is only one beekeeping book in stock at the moment; not something we specialize in.
Thursday 13 May 2010
Finally a busy evening at the apirary
Well if you missed today's session then you have missed a busy evening which will try and summarize below.
Will start with last Sunday the 9th May, Queen rearing hive, we put the queen into the jenter cage to lay the eggs, this was hive 6, the grand mother hive, to do this we first had to find the queen and mark and clip her because bad planning it had not been done. Then on Monday 10th may, the queen was released, and the eggs left to develop until Thusday 13th May. On Wednesday 12th on hive 8 was some fiddling with the cloke boards and entrances to make them think the queen has gone away and get most bees into the top box.
Now to this evening, well it really was busy so in summary, we
To Come next week.
Will start with last Sunday the 9th May, Queen rearing hive, we put the queen into the jenter cage to lay the eggs, this was hive 6, the grand mother hive, to do this we first had to find the queen and mark and clip her because bad planning it had not been done. Then on Monday 10th may, the queen was released, and the eggs left to develop until Thusday 13th May. On Wednesday 12th on hive 8 was some fiddling with the cloke boards and entrances to make them think the queen has gone away and get most bees into the top box.
Now to this evening, well it really was busy so in summary, we
- checked all the hives
- took 3 splits, using the method of removing the queen on the hive along with two frames of brood and either one or two shakes of bees according to how strong the hive was and putting the nuc on the top of the original hive..... bit more to it than this but you just have to be there to see it done.
- a couple of hives were fed, and I discovered a hidden gem in hive 15 which has 10 seems of bees and now we have added a supper.
- Queen rearing, the jenter cage was removed from hive six, and Lee and Val used the caravan to select the smallest lava with the most royal jelly. Due to the strength of the queen raising colony it was decided that only 10 queen cells would be attempted. These where then put on to a frame, as per images. The hair roller is to come more on that next week.
To Come next week.
- We still have the shook swarm to do into the langstroth from hive 5, and then distribute the brood.
- Possible another shook swarm into the rose hive, mainly because hive 3? have quire a bit of chalk brood.
- Maybe another split
- Checking the split colonies to make sure we leave only one or two nice queen cells.
- Clean boxes for most hives...
- We have much more planned but I don't think there will be time...
Thursday 6 May 2010
bad weather delays things - queen rearing started
Well the last two Thursdays have been something of a wash out / freeze out with it being to cold to do our full inspections. I am almost certain those bees are all busy building queen cells...I wonder how many sealed cells there will be when we finally get in ? Anyway the focus has moved on to hive 8 our queen rearing hive.
Jim and Lee did the following work last Tuesday 4th May
Today 6th May, I decided on Hive 6 to be the grandmother colony, as it is a good strong queen. Therefore we have put the Jenter (image right in two parts) in ready for the bees to clean, and on Sunday we will pop the queen in there to lay us some nice eggs. When popping in the jenter i noticed, on the only frame of brood which was taken out, that there was a queen cell.... so that had to be destroyed shame as it would be good to split them, but they will build more.
So when the weather final improves we will be doing lots of things, shook swarms, splits, queen rearing, clean boxes,...plus plus.... and and by the way apparently Nuc A (the third) is doing well, so the queen from no. 7 may not be a dud then.... also about the merge, again quote from Jim
Jim and Lee did the following work last Tuesday 4th May
hive #8 - rearranged the colony in readiness for cell raising into new boxes, with the open brood in the top box, the queen in the bottom, and the cloake board (without insert) between the boxes. The entrance to the bottom box is closed, and the bees use the entrance in the cloake board. Contact feeder put on.
Today 6th May, I decided on Hive 6 to be the grandmother colony, as it is a good strong queen. Therefore we have put the Jenter (image right in two parts) in ready for the bees to clean, and on Sunday we will pop the queen in there to lay us some nice eggs. When popping in the jenter i noticed, on the only frame of brood which was taken out, that there was a queen cell.... so that had to be destroyed shame as it would be good to split them, but they will build more.
So when the weather final improves we will be doing lots of things, shook swarms, splits, queen rearing, clean boxes,...plus plus.... and and by the way apparently Nuc A (the third) is doing well, so the queen from no. 7 may not be a dud then.... also about the merge, again quote from Jim
merging of hive#2 & hive#7 didn't really go to plan. The top box #7 has so few bees they stayed put. We have reduced the colony to one new box and clean floor as #2.
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