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.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Bee Keepers Curse - July
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.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
June 26th 2010 - TBH Inspection
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
To see this movie on YouTube Click here
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
June 22nd Dartington Hive
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.
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.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
June 19th - Top Bar Hive
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
To view this movie on YouTube click here
Monday, June 14, 2010
June 4th Swarm in Top Bar Hive
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.
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.
Monday, June 7, 2010
June 6th 2010
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
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
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