Mikes beekeeping

IR - Hives

2011-11-23T21:58:00.004Z

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.

2011-11-10T15:36:00.002Z

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

2011-08-22T10:24:00.002+01:00

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

2011-08-01T07:38:00.000+01:00

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

2011-07-21T21:25:00.000+01:00

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

2011-06-30T00:04:00.001+01:00

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

2011-06-25T18:05:00.001+01:00

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

2011-05-28T13:00:00.002+01:00

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

2011-05-15T23:58:00.002+01:00

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

2011-05-06T23:39:00.000+01:00

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

2011-04-16T00:26:00.003+01:00

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

2011-04-12T18:34:00.001+01:00

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

2011-04-09T22:34:00.001+01:00

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

2011-04-05T06:25:00.003+01:00

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

2011-04-04T02:29:00.000+01:00

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

2011-03-28T12:30:00.003+01:00

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

2011-03-27T16:09:00.002+01:00

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

2011-03-15T00:08:00.001Z

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

2011-03-13T22:04:00.002Z

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

2011-02-12T15:44:00.001Z

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

2011-01-23T17:49:00.005Z

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

2011-01-13T12:03:00.002Z

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.

Hive Guide 2011

2010-11-12T09:48:00.000Z

I'm pleased to announce I've updated the Hive Guide

Hive Guide 2011
I've added several new hive types and a section on plastic frames and how to use Thymol as an effective varroa control in Spring and Autumn.

The purpose of the guide is to help new bee keepers decide which hive to use and some helpful advice on where to start. Click on the link above or the picture in the side bar. The guide will take awhile to download.

Closing down for winter 2010

2010-11-05T01:27:00.000Z

Once again we are having an Indian summer and its lovely for us, temperatures are a barmy 14'C for this week so far which is way above the seasonal average for October - November. As a result the girls have all been working solidly collecting as much pollen and nectar as they can for winter. During September I fed them then treated them with Apigard, however as of next year I will solely use thymol for varroa control on the recommendation of a very good bee keeper and friend.

Closing Down
On Tuesday Clare and I went to visit the two apiaries to removed all the queen excluder's and any other excess equipment I had stored above some of the colonies. The main reason for this is to reduce the hives down to minimal size and profile. We sliced up a 12.5Kg lump of fondant into about 2 KG lumps and wrapped it in greaseproof paper and cut a slit and placed the slit over the hole in the crown board and finally wished them each good luck.

I may need to buy another box of fondant, although they will be loosely clustered at the moment they are still fairly active, ideally I would like the temperature to drop to around 4'C which is said to be the optimal temperature to ensure the colony remains clustered.

Honey Harvest - Summer 2010

2010-09-12T03:14:00.003+01:00

After allowing a few days for the honey to settle I filled 64 hex jars (340grams - 12oz) to sell at my association Honey and Bee Weekend Show at a local country farm. Then filled 10 x 1Lbs jars and left another 10 Lbs in the bucket so I could mix it with a couple of jars of my OSR honey to make soft set honey.

Honey and Bee Show
Over the two days I sold 19 jars which I was very happy about as several members also had their honey up for sale as well.

Some pictures from the show

You may notice it looks a little quiet... It was busy but as I was manning the honey sales table and couldn't take tons of pictures.

Harvest time - August Part III

2010-08-26T16:17:00.000+01:00

I've just finished extracting seven super's with various amounts in each, some full others just had a small amount per frame. I didn't have a set of scales with me but a very rough approximation going by the 3 buckets its about 6 gallons worth. No idea how many 12 oz / 340 gram jars this will fill but needless to say it will take awhile but I think I will need a day or two to recover as my arms and shoulder muscles are throbbing.

Harvest time - August Part II

2010-08-22T21:45:00.001+01:00

I decided as I will be out of action for approx 6 weeks after a minor surgery at the end of August I need to clear the super's and get the honey extracted this week. This morning the rain held off for long enough for me to fit the clearer boards with the porter bee escapes so now I will need to wait a day or two before most of the bees should move down into the brood chambers. There will always be a small number of bees who refuse to leave, but I will give them a special treat of Apiinvert to keep them happy.

Taken from - Paynes Bee farm website
Apiinvert is a syrup of extremely high purity. It is made up exclusively of sucrose and its building blocks fructose and glucose. For that reason Apiinvert contains no forms of sugar that strain the digestive tract. The high proportion of fructose means that the product shows little tendency to granulate in the honeycombs, even at low temperatures and so prevents starvation of the bees.

Harvest time - August

2010-08-21T19:07:00.004+01:00

Harvesting
Its almost time to put on the clearer boards with porter bee escapes to clear the bees down into the brood chamber so the super's can be removed and extracted. I have 7 super's and one national sized brood chamber ready to be removed. During the last inspection I found several of the frames were only about 60% capped, I don't like to remove them until the vast majority 80% are capped. The poor weather over the last few days hasn't been ideal for the colonies to cap cells but I really need to get the super's off and start to treat all the hives and feed a few of the smaller colonies I started this year as they are still a little light on capped stores.

Testing the Honey
I bought a refractometer so I can test the honey, hopefully it will be about 18-20% which is perfect to extract and allow it to rest for a day or two for the bubbles to rise whilst kept warm before I fill the 12oz hexagon jars.

More to follow in the next week or two.

Poly Hive - 15th August

2010-08-15T11:00:00.001+01:00

I decided to buy a poly langstroth hive and all plastic frames to trial after I had read so many good reports from others about them.

The hive I bought to start with was a double medium, floor, feeder and roof. I also bought enough one piece medium plastic frames and spent an hour out in the sun painting the molten wax over them as I didn't have a small fleece roller at the time. Below is a video of John a friend of mine showing how to prepare the frames.

I shook swarmed the prime swarm from the Dartington hive into the poly hive and fed them about 3 gallons of feed over the next few weeks. Ideally it was a little late in the season to shook swarm a colony onto new undrawn frames but after a slow start they quickly drew out most of the frames and stored massive amounts of the Apinvert feed I was giving them. The queen began to lay large patches of eggs and by the end of August they looked very happy in their new home.

Inside a TBH August

2010-08-06T09:29:00.006+01:00

Decided to film the TBH for the last time this year and put all the footage into one video before I start to think about preparing them for winter.

To see this movie on YouTube Click here

Here is several minutes worth of the August footage.

To see this Movie on YouTube Click here

Wasps July 16th

2010-07-25T02:04:00.006+01:00

After the problems I've had queen rearing this year, I ended up getting a couple of queens from a friend of mine. I prepared the two hives 24 hours before hand by removing the drone laying queens from both. At the same time I made a nuc with purely nurse bees from two of my good strong colonies to combine with one of the now queenless hives, I shook in 5 frames of bees which were on brood frames with eggs and larvae and waited 20 minutes for the mature bees to find the entrance and fly back to their normal hives. I sealed the entrance then moved them to my other apiary. Late the next day I put in a queen cage with the candy cap still sealed and left them for 3 days before returning and removing the cap to give the queen the best chance of being accepted before she was released from her cage.
Another 3 days later I was checking one of my other hives when I saw what seemed a non-stop flow of wasps entering the nurse bee nuc to rob it. I opened the nuc to find hundreds of bees and about 30 wasps dead inside but thankfully the queen and about 200 bees were still alive. My only option was to capture the queen in a queen clip and shake remaining live bees out into the queenless hive I was going to combine them with and coat the queen clip and the whole colony with lots of powdered sugar.
3 days later I released the queen from the clip and she calmly walked down between two frames, I will check in two weeks time to see if she has started to lay or if she was attacked and killed.

Last year I only had a minor problem with wasps, but this year it has become a major problem at one of my apiaries. I have had to close down the entrances to a narrow slot on all the hives even though some of them are strong the wasps seem desperate to get in. If the problem continues I may need to fit a plate loosely over the entrance to confuse the attackers how to get in.

All in all, this year hasn't been to good with the problems I've had and the long spells of hot weather and very little rain which has badly affected the nectar flow.

Bee Keepers Curse - July

2010-07-18T14:00:00.002+01:00

Prolapsed Disc

Back in June I had mild lower back pain and severe cramp like pain through my backside and all down my right leg. After several visits to various doctors who assumed I had only tweaked a muscle and thought I wanted time off to watch the world cup...

I was finally referred to a Bupa back specialist who took one look at me walking a few yards before telling me he thought I had a prolapsed disc and I would need a MRI to confirm.

Above: Two weeks later here is the telling picture.

He explained what options I had and what he could do and a week later I opted for surgery in August.

A warning to all beeks although this injury was not caused by bee keeping, look after yourself and don't try to lift a complete hive or several full supers at a time. The painkillers I was given only knocked the edge off the pain so I could cope, trying to get a good nights sleep is almost impossible.

June 26th 2010 - TBH Inspection

2010-06-27T02:21:00.002+01:00

Ray, Linda and Rob joined me at my apiary today. I saved the TBH to last and I was very happy with their progress since last week. The weather has been over 22'C all week and the colony has built a nice amount of comb on 7 bars and the queen has started to lay. I only removed bars 6 & 7 as I could clearly see a small patch of eggs on bar 6 and eggs, larvae and sealed brood on bar 5. As the weather has been so good there is an early nectar flow and the girls are working very hard to collect as much as they can.

To see this movie on YouTube Click here

June 22nd Dartington Hive

2010-06-22T22:55:00.002+01:00

This year the colony I had in my home made Dartington style hive dwindled to about 100 bees over winter. The queen was only laying a tiny patch of eggs on both sides of one frame as they couldn't keep the required temperatures warm enough, so I moved them out of the Dartington and I put them into a small 4 frame nuc and pretty much thought they wouldn't last long. Sods law although the colony is still small it is growing and although a little feisty if opened, they have survived partly I hope by the 1:1 feed and pollen pattie I've given them. The other hive is the swarm I got a few weeks ago with sadly a drone laying queen.

Today I went to check on these hives to decide if I should remove the drone laying queen then combine them a day or so later.

I suited up and walked towards the two hives and thought wow thats a loud buzzing I can hear. As I looked at the entrances of the two hives there was no more than 5-10 bees flying about outside them both, it suddenly dawned on me the noise was coming from the Dartington hive as I looked across towards it trying to peer through the long grass where I abandoned it 20 feet away from the other hives to see there was 30+ bees flying around the entrance.

My first thought was they were drawn to the empty combs and the smell looking for stores to rob until I got close enough to see the entrance and about 20 more bees were walking around on the front of the hive. I removed the roof and tried to gently prized up the crown board with my hive tool only to find it seemed unusually heavy, so I put the smoker down and using both hands lifted one side of the crown board up and peered under it to see a large natural comb about 10" wide and 12" deep and the whole entrance end of the hive was full of bees covering the 3 empty frames I left in there and covering the walls, crown board and the natural comb they have built since they moved in. I carefully smoked the bees off the crown board and removed the natural comb and lent it against the side wall so they could access the stores they put in it still and quickly grabbed three more 14x12 frames with foundation I had with me so they have 6 frames.

Happy Days

The Dartington style hive in its old location on the right.

June 19th - Top Bar Hive

2010-06-20T00:59:00.003+01:00

After 4 pints of feed the colony in the top bar hive have built enough comb I can see it. So I have stopped feeding as I could see on closer inspection without needing to lift out any of the bars they have now started to store some nectar in the visible comb.

To view this movie on YouTube click here

June 4th Swarm in Top Bar Hive

2010-06-14T18:46:00.004+01:00

No visible combs after two weeks.

Since hiving them all they seem to be doing is clustering on the left side of the hive covering 6-7 bars. I would of expected to see some brand new comb by now which lead me to think they were starving so I decided late yesterday to give them 2 pints of 1:1. I had a quick look at the feeder today which only had about 1/4 of a pint left so they were definitely hungry. Traffic at the entrance is good but considering their size I would of expected a lot more. No idea on the status of the queen yet but I will continue to feed them now and hope to see some progress soon.

June 6th 2010

2010-06-07T10:20:00.003+01:00

Oil Seed Rape - Extraction

One of my apiary's is only half a mile away from several very large fields of OSR which have just finished flowering for the year. I removed the super's to extract them or the nectar would of quickly crystallized and set solid. After a quick inspection I had 26 frames in total from 3 supers which passed the flick test to check if they were ready to be extracted the rest I left on the hive. Some of the extracted frames still had large amounts of semi solid OSR which could not be spun out so I will cut out the foundation and gently melt them down to separate the wax and then feed this back later in the year.

32.7 Lbs over all

June 4th 2010

2010-06-04T19:50:00.004+01:00

I've been mentoring a couple who have a hive at my apiary. A while ago I advised them to put their spare hive out in their back garden as a bait hive. I got a call from them saying a swarm descended into their garden and entered their hive.

Then at about midday my mobile and then my home phone rang, my mum told me about a swarm in one of her friends gardens. 20 minutes later armed with a camera and top bar nuc I'm smiling from ear to ear even though it is only looks like a small cast. (Queen not seen)

Every swarm collectors dream as they were less than 2 feet off the floor.

They swarmed on the 1st May with a similar size cluster which was collected by another keeper, then they tried to swarm again yesterday but returned to the hive after 2 hours which upset the beek who came to try and collect them.

Today
By the time I arrived today at about 12:30 they had been out for about 2.5 hours.

They came from a feral colony who have been in an old decorative chimney pot at the bottom of the garden for about 3 years. Each year they have thrown 2-3 swarms of roughly equal sizes.

To see the movie on YouTube Click here

May 24th - Call out

2010-05-25T10:29:00.003+01:00

I was called out to look at a colony in a roof space of a front porch which moved in about a week ago. After a quick inspection and a couple of photographs I was happy to tell the owner he had a bumble bee colony. After a quick search on google I think they are Bombus Hortorum.

Even though it wasn't a honey bee colony I was still happy I could let the owner know not to worry.

May 14th - collecting a swarm

2010-05-15T23:14:00.003+01:00

After changing shifts at work and feeling very tired I finally had a day off. I was relaxing whilst reading through several threads on the http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk when the phone rang. I was asked if I was interested in collecting a swarm to which I jumped at the chance.

I took a camcorder and put together this movie.

To watch this movie on YouTube goto http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXSLviALnI0

April 2010 Part IV - Final Manipulations

2010-04-24T00:26:00.012+01:00

Final manipulations to split the strong hives.
Starting on the left and going round clockwise.

Hive 5 (green) - Empty Top Bar Hive
Hive 6 (green) - Empty Top Bar Hive
Hive 1 (blue) - Queenless (recently split double brood box)
Hive 2 (red) - Queenless Nuc
Hive 3 (blue) - Queen right (artificially swarmed - removed 5 frames)
Hive 4 (blue) - Queen right (split from hive 1)
Hive 7 (blue) - Queenless (split from hive 3)

I started with hive 3 and found the queen to ensure she would be kept in hive 3. I then artificially split this colony to create hive 7 by moving 4 frames with plenty of sealed brood, eggs and larvae and also shook in two additional frames of bees. The reason for adding the bees from two extra frames is to ensure when all the older foraging bees return back to hive 3 more than enough young bees remain to tend the brood and naturally rear a new queen.

Colonies 1, 2 and 7 all have suitable eggs and larvae to rear a queencell to replace their old queens. I will now leave these colonies alone so not to upset or disturb them until early June when they should each have a new 2010 laying queen.

I then opened hive 4 and found the queen in this hive, this means hive 1 is queenless and answers why they were overly defensive the last time I opened this hive. Today they were calm and bring in plenty of fresh pollen and signs of nectar as well.

April 2010 Part III

2010-04-13T23:18:00.005+01:00

I decided as the weather was a beautiful 16C today to bite the bullet and split the double brood box hive. I may regret this but as the colony size was massive I was concerned they would suddenly swarm if I missed just one of the queen cells in the next week or so.

After checking both brood chambers had eggs and larvae I removed the top brood chamber and placed it onto a new floor then lifted the two together and set them up a stand 15ft away. As most of the flyers will return to their original site I gave the upper half the super which is about 3/4's full of mostly crystallized honey. It doesn't matter which half have the queen but I will check them both again in a week or so to see which has built queen cells then leave that one alone for the next few weeks to let them bring on a new queen.

These bees are very defensive compared to the carni's I have, these girls go all out to sting as soon as they land. Thankfully a small amount of smoke and they will fly off again with their stingers intact.

April 2010 Part II

2010-04-08T17:54:00.008+01:00

Another very busy day dealing with the bees.
A few weeks ago I learnt one of the members of my association had ordered two queens however one of the colonies that was due to be requeen suddenly failed to nosema meaning they had a spare queen. I offered to give them some bees so we made up a four frame nuc from the colony I have just taken over.

This was the first time I'd had a chance to look inside the hive, so I was shocked to see it was brimming with bees even though its a double national colony. The super was 3/4's full of capped honey already and plenty of bees as well so I've added another of undrawn comb to keep them busy until I can get back to check for the first signs of queen cells before I split the brood boxes to make up another colony.

From pic

We also went to see our other colony to inspect them, my fears were correct they are struggling and we only found a small patch of sealed brood and eggs. Although they still had plenty of sealed honey some of it looked pretty crystallized and at a guess only about 1000 bees in total. So we returned home and made up some feed and grabbed a nuc and went back to the apiary and moved the Dartington hive 20 ft away then frame by frame transferred them in to the nuc using the same process as shook swarming as most of the brood frames had mould. I poured a fair amount of the feed into the top portion of cells of two of the frames.

Now its a waiting game, we'll give the colony a couple of weeks to see if they survive and hopefully the queen will begin to lay a frame or two of eggs.

Pictures to follow

April 2010

2010-04-04T22:14:00.005+01:00

Had a real busy weekend, as a result this post is a reasonable length.
Saturday - I removed all the equipment from my new apiary site and the garage of the bee keeper who has had to retire and he donated to the association (see previous post) and took it to a safe lock up. This took a couple of trips despite using a long wheel base transit van.

Sunday - I arranged an early meeting for the three others who won bids for hives + colonies to come and see their hives. We walked into the apiary to see only the odd one or two bees were cautiously testing the weather conditions before flying out, we all stood around talking all things bee keeping for about an hour by which time the sun came out and warmed the air. We watched the entrances and the amount of foragers coming and going with bright yellow pollen. Although each of the hives is at different states of spring build up its a great way to show new bee keepers want to expect from thier bees according to the weather and the size of the colony.

Later in the afternoon my wife and I went back to the new apiary to drop off two new top bar hives I made over winter (see tbh project OCT 21, 2009 post) and we were very pleased to see all four hives were now out flying. My hive had a been busy cleaning house and removing the dead and had about 30 odd bees out sunning themselves on the front of the hive and a constant stream of bees who had been out collecting water and pollen.

We then drove to our other site and after watching the entrance for 5 minutes to only see a few bees coming and going. I decided to take another quick look inside under the crown board and once again I was still surprised to see about 40 bees sat on top of the frames, I honestly thought I had lost this colony or I would of only seen a few bees left. I guess they are just slow at building up but until I make a frame by frame inspection its hard to say exactly how they are doing.

New Apiary Site

2010-03-28T23:45:00.001+01:00

On Friday I put my name into a bid for an apiary site, as sadly one of the members of my association has had to retired and he decided to donate his site and all his equipment back to the association. I was the lucky winner of the site and a double brood box national hive with a strong colony. So this year I will forge ahead with my plans to start several new top bar hives and also start on a small scale queen rearing operation as well. I intend to breed from my colony that has over wintered as they were gentle and well tempered all last year. Clare my wife said I haven't stopped smiling since I found out.

Some pictures to follow when I've had a chance to visit the site.

Quick Peek

2010-02-25T11:59:00.001Z

As the air temperature was about 10'C and no wind I went to see the girls today. I lifted the roof off and could hear the gentle hum from inside. As this hive is a Dartington style hive I lifted off the crown board from the unused end of the hive to reveal the block of fondant which has hardly been touched which is great news and I put in about 150grams of a pollen patty. I quickly lifted the crown board from above the colony and could see about 100 bees on top of the frames. As they appear to be in good shape for now with plenty of stores to see them through I don't need to return again until the end of March or early April when hopefully the weather will be warmer and the colony will be expanding very quickly.

Feb 2010

2010-02-09T15:38:00.002Z

First signs of life from the Dartington hive the other day, the air temps got upto 8'C which is still dam cold but there was very little wind. I watched several bees exit the hive and spiral upwards so I walked round the back and pressed my ear to the hive and gave it a tap and could hear a quick roar from within. Roll on the warmer weather so they can get out and forage some of the early spring pollen.

I'll warn you now this blog is going to become top bar heavy in content in a few months, I have 3 full sized hives waiting to be filled and a 6 bar nuc ready.

TBH Guide

2010-02-01T13:26:00.000Z

Thank you to all of you who have emailed me about my Hive Guide and I am pleased to tell you I've written a new guide about Top Bar Hives

This year I am converting to using Top Bar Hives as I've built four full sized hives and two nuc's. I also made one for a friend and I'm looking forward to setting them up and starting a colony in them. As I'm currently off work with a bad back (honestly) I decided to write a simple guide on Top Bar Hives to help explain to all bee keepers there is no reason not to build your own hive and use it instead of paying unreasonable amounts on a brand new hive. Included in the guide is a section on how to become a bee keeper for less than £100.

TBH Project

2009-10-21T22:54:00.006+01:00

Got the timber yesterday for two new TBH's, 21 Meters in all. I was just about to start loading it into my car and spotted it was at best 20mm. After a quick chat with the saleman I left the store with lots of planks of about 27mm thick. I guess I was ignorant about buying prepared sawn timber, thinking I would get what I asked for... Double check before you buy is my advice.

Started building this hive and so far its going well. I'll update with new pictures as I go to those you see below.

The build is going well, and so far I am very pleased with it. I decided I will go with a hole entrance, as I want to cut down the chances of robbing as I have a lot of wasps and other bee colonies in my area.

Next project

2009-10-13T22:55:00.007+01:00

My next project will be some thing like this, but with a pitched roof not flat.

(picture from - http://www.backyardhive.com/)

18" top bars

It looks good and has large volume area inside and with the window it will cut down the amount of times this hive should need to be opened. Although I will make my version a little deeper than 10" and add a varroa tray as I believe monitoring mite levels is a vital part of pest control and should be done by every beekeeper.

FDBKA - Honey and Bee weekend

2009-10-01T10:30:00.001+01:00

Fareham and District Beekeepers Association held a honey and bee weekend at a local farm center.

I thought I would create a video of Mike H and myself showing a general inspection of the hives then I'd edit it down into a short movie for the public but it didn't go quite according to plan.

I didn't have time to organise myself properly and in the end we didn't show this film. Over the two hours of filming I got stung three times, which was my own fault really, Mike rarely wears his gloves unless he is unsure of how his bees are doing, and as I needed to operate the camera's I didn't wear mine... So thought I compile the stings into a short movie for your enjoyment.

No idea why the third sting hurt so much, but the wife enjoyed watching this little movie.