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.
Friday 27 May 2011
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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