IR - Hives

Considering the hives are made from both wood and poly and the size of the colonies varies the amount of heat generated which the camera has picked up is surprising. 

IR - Infra red movie of a cup of tea.

A cup of tea filmed by a thermal imaging camera, its amazing to see what the human eye can't. 

I intend to take a series of IR pictures of my bee hives this Winter. I have no idea what I will capture if any thing at all as the wood may be too thick, but I hope I will be able to see some of the heat generated by the cluster.  

(This camera was on lone to us whilst our camera was being repaired, sadly our camera does not have the option to record video footage) 

August Swarm

I was asked to help a fellow bee keeper with a swarm.
When I arrived there was two separate clusters in his neighbours garden. One was 20ft up in a tree and the other was on the side of the climbing frame. We decided to have quick look inside his hives first to see which of them had swarmed, during which time the cluster in the tree combined with the other cluster thankfully as this made collecting them so much easier as I only had one nuc. Once I'd collect over 85-90% of the swarm I left them alone and returned again after 19:30 hrs.


Evening
As soon as I approached the nuc I could clearly hear two different pitches of piping. I think each of the original clusters had its own queen. My guess is one is the parent queen the other is one of her daughter queens (princess). At some point they will fight to the death and more often than not the younger and more nimble queen will survive. Over the next few weeks she will need to fly out and mate and then will hopefully start laying before the end of the season when the weather turns cold and the colony start to cluster to keep warm for Winter.

July Swarm

Small swarm 29th July 2011.

I was called to collect a small swarm which had moved into a compost bin two days earlier. Once I'd removed the front cover I spotted the queen in the middle of the comb laying an egg, so I decided to wait until she had finished before shaking her into the nuc. I almost made the mistake of shaking the bees off the panel with the comb upside down. 
This year I haven't used my smoker much but I had to use a fair amount to drive them out of the bin as I didn't want to move it in case the top two thirds which was full with old grass cuttings collapsed down. All in all it was very simple to collect most of the colony by brushing them on to a frame and dumping them over the nuc once enough of them were fanning attracting the fliers and I covered the bin entrance with the frame which stopped them from flying straight back inside the bin again. 

I returned at 9pm and found they had all left the bin and were happily clustered in the nuc covering 2.5 frames, so I strapped them up and waited another 10 mins just to be sure I had them all before moving them to my apiary.

July 19th - Inspection

Poly Langstroth deep and medium
The brood chamber has 5 excellent deep frames with large patches of brood and 2 good frames of eggs, larvae & pollen the end frames are full of mostly capped stores. The medium chamber above (see picture) has been mostly drawn out apart from the end frames 2 each side which are still being worked on all be it slowly, these part drawn frames will be staggered and moved inwards on my next inspection as the colony size continues to increases. The central frames have a nice arc of capped honey across the top, 6 frames in all with a nice patch of sealed brood, plus more recently a patch of 3-4 day old larvae extending the brood area backwards across 3/4's of the frames on 4 of the frames.

Picture - Sealed brood within the green circle, to the right 2" more of larvae extending the brood nest area across the frame. (slightly darker yellow comb)

This colony is off to the heather at the end of the month provided the weather improves although the long range forecast for August is still likely to be unsettled.

June 30th - Almost taller than me

2010 Queen, the colony are showing no signs of wanting to swarm but since the last time I opened them up they have filled a super and capped it. So I've added another BS National chamber instead.



Super - full capped.
Super - full capped.
14x12 - half full of uncapped honey.
BS National - Added today (plastic foundation).
14x12 - 8 frames of brood, 2 frames of stores, 6 frames of the 8 brood frames are wall to wall with brood in all stages.

June 25th - Bee Sting and Drugs

Long story which I won't bore you with, but just to say I visited my hives yesterday just to get some fresh air after being stuck in doors for almost 2 weeks after my back op. I noticed a swarm had made a home in an old nuc I use for rubbish, I thought the entrance was blocked off with foam but its disappeared.

Today I went to transfer them into another nuc with frames and in the process got stung on the forehead, long story short they are still in the same nuc. On the way home I started to feel hot and sweaty, my ears were bright red and I could feel my forehead starting to swell, lips felt puffy and my whole body start feeling hot and sweaty. Fortunately I only live a few minutes away as by the time I got home I knew I was reacting really badly to being stung. Since my back op I've been on a cocktail of drugs, currently I'm still taking Dihydrocodeine, Etoricoxib and Paracetamol. I think the combination of drugs and the sting reacted badly. 10 minutes later my whole body was covered in blisters. (picture of my upper arm)

Each of them felt like a small burning sensation and sore. My suit was peppered with hundreds of stings sacs but I'm positive this reaction was only from the one sting. The wife got the piriton tablets out and got me bowl of cool water and a cloth to help cool me down again.

Despite some peoples thoughts of leather gauntlets I am so glad I was wearing them today. Two hours later thankfully I felt fine again. A sure fire way to remind yourself how nasty bee stings can be, more so if your body is recovering from major surgery and full of pain killers and anti-inflammatories.

May 28th Swarm

Paul a friend of mine gave me a small swarm from one of his colonies. They settled high up in a tree in his garden for two days before flying off. The next day they returned again and settled in another tree where he was able to collect them and put them in a box.

I decided to put them into the Polish mini hive I bought along with about 2 pints of 1:1 syrup, each frame is about half the size of a BS National so with the two brood chambers of 6 frames each its about the same as a 6 frame National nuc. The next time I will open them up will be some time in July or August.

May 15th

Last weekend I extracted 3 national supers, let it settle in a warm room for most of the week before skimming off the tiny bits of wax and air bubbles. Yesterday skimmed off the last few bits before stirring it thoroughly using an electric drill and then gently warming it up again in the airing cupboard over night.


Today I sterilized 60 jars before stirring the honey again thoroughly again and filling 53 whole jars with OSR honey.

Very Nice

May 5th - Exmoor

I went to see Pete, a good friend and fellow bee keeper I've had the pleasure of knowing for 3 years who lives on the edge of Exmoor. We spent the day touring some of his apiaries and he was kind enough to show me how to graft all be it from the passenger seat of his truck. 


After priming the cups with a small amount of royal jelly, he selected each larvae from the parent frame and carefully placed them on the royal jelly.

Both Clare and I fell in love with the local area who wouldn't when its field after field of OSR, hedgerows, woods, orchards, wild flower pastures, clover and of course Exmoor national park which is has thousands of acres of heather. If we win the lottery we will be house hunting the next day.

April 15th - OSR

Had some real fun today and scared the wife silly at the same time.


Earlier today I went to the apiary to double check on a colony ready for their move to OSR. Once the air temps started to fall we (wife and I) went to pick up the colony. I parked the car within 40 feet of where I had chosen to site them and roughly levelled up the hive.


Pic 1 - Opening the hive

As predicted as soon as I opened the entrance hundreds began pouring out like bullets covering my hat, veil and shoulders. At this point I decided it would be a good idea to retreat some distance and let them calm down.


Pic 2 - 10 minutes later

I still had plenty running around on my veil looking for a way to get in. Sorry, I'm trying to watch the bees on my veil and not look like some cross-eyed gormless nutter wondering around the edge of an OSR field after the sun had gone down.


Pic 3 - Another 10 minutes later

The front of the hive still looking very busy. Lots of bees fanning and the odd one trying to attack the camera after each flash. All in all a fun day, never laughed so much when so many bees are so desperate to sting me.

April 12th - Swarm Hive

As it was a lovely day I decided to quickly open the swarm hive to see how they were doing. Well, the good news is they are drawing out all the frames roughly equally. I carefully lifted out the old pre-drawn frame to check to see if I could see any eggs and was very pleased to see the Queen has been busy laying up a few hundred cells when she just casually waddled across where I was looking.




So today I am very happy, the colony is very gentle and calm and a pleasure to have in our small back garden for now.

April 9th 2011 - Swarm

They don't get much easier than this. I left several bait hives out in my back garden and today a swarm took advantage. They decided to ignore all the larger hives and went for the one with the oldest combs.

A few hours later I transferred them into my nice new national poly hive with one old stores comb and four new wax coated plastic combs and one with regular wax foundation.

Happy days !

Lemon Grass Oil - Poly hives

Just a word of warning to all of you who use poly hives or nucs. Do not put any lemon grass oil on the polystyrene. 

The oil dissolves the polystyrene. Instead just put a couple of drops on the top bar of one or two of the frames. Remember to reapply every couple of weeks. 

April 4th 2011

Bait hives
As swarm season is about to start its time to set up the bait hives.
Previously I've made up a few frames with foundation but this year I bought 20 sheets of wax coated plastic foundation instead as I found after awhile the normal foundation turns stale and is useless after a few weeks of hot weather. The trick I use is simply added a few drops of lemongrass oil on the top of a couple of the frames and wait. 
The lemongrass oil scent seems to attract bees like iron filings to a magnet. The idea is when a colony swarms they then settle some where and send out lots of scout bees to find a potential new home, once one of the scouts finds some where suitable it returns to gather more bees to come and inspect the site before they in turn return and so on until a critical number decide to take a look then the whole swarm moves in. Last year the 4 frame nuc I left in the garden had plenty of bees interested but I guess it wasn't big enough to house a good sized swarm unlike the empty Dartington hive which attracted a massive swarm. So this year I have a langstroth medium chamber and one of the new 6 frame poly nucs I bought sat out in the garden about 4 feet off the floor in a sunny spot ready and waiting. 


I'll let you know if I have any luck.

Hive Guide Update

I've recently added a new section to the guide.
Poly Nuc's
I also intend to make a few other minor changes in the next few days. The guide is now approximately 25 Meg so it will take some time to download so please be patient if you click on the Hive Guide cover picture in the side bar or alternatively the link below. 


Hive Guide2011


Once again thank you for all the feedback, I really appreciate that you took the time to email me to let me know what you think of the guide and all requests to use it as part of a training package for new bee keepers. 


Good News
Several people have made requests for another guide, one subject seems to be very popular so I am happy to let you know I will be working on new guide to do with bee keeping but not hives which will be available later this year.
Mike

March 27th Colony Adjustments

I've decided to transfer one of my strong colonies into a Langstroth poly hive. I tried this late last year without much success. However this time I've taken a different approach.


I started by shifting the National hive to one side, so I could turn the hive stand round 90' and place a wooden board down so the feet of the poly hive had a good base. I then put the poly hive on top and carefully arranged the frames before adding a ply wood template ( as the langstroth hive is longer than a national the ply board will be used as a temporary roof) before putting the National back on top.

-  Template shown stood up so you can see the over all size and the large hole in it.

-  National Hive Brood + Super for 14x12 frames

-  Template shown between the two chambers
-  Langstroth deep brood chamber and floor


The aim is to allow the colony to expand downwards over time. Once they have drawn out enough of the Langstroth frames I will insert a queen excluder and a frame of brood below so the queen has no choice but to use the lower chamber.

Here is a picture I took from a distance two days later as I didn't have my bee suit.

March Inspection II

After finding the two struggling colonies yesterday, I decided only one of them was worth trying to save. So I put together a poly nuc with 3 new frames and transferred the colony and two frames with large amounts of capped syrup into the nuc and added an empty frame feeder as well, just to help fill out the space. To some this may seem a little early to be making this sort of adjustment, but the old hive floor and frames were littered with dead bees which were mouldy and the colony would of struggled to keep warm in a full size chamber.  

Twenty minutes later.

March Inspection

Had a great day today. 

March Inspection 
First time I've opened them up to look inside properly. Lifted the crown boards and was glad to find four of my six colonies looking good and building up nicely although a little light on stores. The other two colonies not shown in this video will need to be combined and put into a nuc if they are to survive as one of the queens has failed, the other is only laying a small patch of eggs as the colony is very small.

February Inspection

As the weather was very nice for this time of the year and not a cloud in the sky so Clare and I went to see the girls. All but the poly hive were out flying and making the most of the warm day and collecting the first spring pollen.

We quickly lifted the roof of each hive to check the amounts of fondant they had and were pleased to see most of the colonies have hardly touched it since last month.

January 23rd - Winter Check

After the last inspection I thought I'd quickly check the girls again today to see how much of the fondant they had been given had been consumed. I'm pleased they are all still alive, although a little concerned they are high in the hive and most of them are taking the fondant so early in the year. 


Funtley - 
Hive 1 - Gave them 3kg's worth as they were clustered up high in the super, this was the first time I felt the need to feed them as previously when hefted they seemed ok.
Hive 2 - Clustered reasonably high but hardly touched the fondant I'd given them already and the hive still felt reasonably weighty.
Hive 3 - Most of the fondant they had has been taken so I've given them another 3kg's and the hive felt a little light.
TBH - Not too confident they will pull through as they were a small colony in the Autumn, signs of lots of pale brown streaks on the landing board, tray and legs.




Local Apiary  (* see below)
Nuc - (small colony) Most of the fondant they had has been taken, so I've given them another 3kg's.
National - Hive is light, most of the fondant they had has been taken, so I've given them another 3Kg's.
Poly - Difficult to gauge how they are doing, but just to be safe gave them another 3kg's.


* Back in November 2010
I was made aware of a bonfire within 20 ft of my hives, the wind was blowing the smoke across the apiary and to top it off some kids decided to throw several car tyres on as well once the party was almost over. Two of the three colonies had at least 30-35+ lbs each before November and were a good size prior to the bonfire. All three colonies had far more dead bees piled up near the entrances and on the floor below the entrance hole than the last few of years. 

Winter Inspection

Time to start planning for the year ahead, paint the new poly hive chambers and wax coat the new batch of plastic frames ready for when I shook swarm some of my colonies. The Last couple of days have been a mild 8-10'C plenty of bees are emerging and taking a quick flight to relieve themselves before returning to their hives.

Of the six colonies and a nuc I had going into winter they all appear to of survived although several of them have taken a large amount of the fondant I gave them. I will need to get some more fondant to help see them through the next few weeks although it's far to early to tell what state they are in and if the queens are being to lay yet, but fingers crossed I hope this year will be a good year for them.