Queen rearing

Last night attended the first Queen rearing class by Mike aka 'Beesnbeans', very informative, and with all the kit they supply these days should be fun raising queens, the only problem I see is where on earth am I going to put all these hives, my little ladies have a real issue with me cutting the grass so definitely can't put another hive in my garden!

So next task is to get some nuc boxes made up and perhaps some mini nucs to drop the virgin queens in.

Should be fun and potentially profitable too.

EU madness

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/beekeeping/8873410/European-court-rules-beekeepers-must-prove-GM-pollen-is-not-an-ingredient-of-honey.html#disqus_thread

Surely Brussels has really lost the plot, just how many of these crops will there be in the gardens of Whyteleafe, sounds like more jobs for the boys and I bet there is only one country in the EU that would act upon this???? Because our lot are just as daft at times!!!

Bee Botox

Well yesterday was such a nice day weather wise that decided should really tidy garden and cut grass, might not get another chance when grass was reasonably dry.

Big mistake, bees still don't like me cutting the grass, they got an early strike in when I was only using shears, on forehead, I was going to post a photo, but when a colleague at work said I looked like one of the aliens from Star Trek I thought better of the photo! :-)

Ended up cutting the grass in my bee suit, this can't carry on! But hey by the next time I cut the grass all these bees except the Queen will be dead and the next generation might be in a better mood?

But on the plus side no wrinkles again on my forehead, time to google this bee sting therapy that Victoria Beckenham has done, maybe I can offer lunchtime sessions at work, a whole new sideline to beekeeping :-)

A very old bee

Spotted on the wall of St Peter's church at the Vatican, I wonder why somebody chose to make this all those years ago?

Back in Whyteleafe the bees were tucking themselves in for the winter and then we get a nice warm day and the promise of 18 deg tomorrow.

Tomorrow will drop the second Apiguard into the hive and after talking with fellow bee keepers will drop the crown board below the super and let them spend the winter in just the brood box which is how it should always be. Easy to get this beekeeping thing a bit confused at times, will probably change my mind again by morning! :-)

October and bees still flying!!!

Well October is here and the bees are still flying, the season is all confused, not to mention me! In two or three minds what do I do?

Opened the hive for the last proper check until the spring, all seems well, found the queen, some brood and larvae but not much and loads of honey in the brood box, in fact it is full of honey. On top of that I have a super with six frames of uncapped honey, pretty sure I don't need to feed the bees, they have so much honey already stored up.

No sign of any drones, so the lazy bar stewards have been kicked out and are now probably wasp food!

This beekeeping lark is sometimes about gut feelings, so rightly or wrongly I have left the super on, removed the queen excluder so queenie can move between brood and super through the winter, have added a few more super frames but left some space and added apiguard to start varroa mite treatment.

Sitting here my only concern is if I have a super on in January when I need to apply oxalic acid, will it work? Oh well I suppose time will tell :-)

I'm sure this might not make much sense to some of you that read my blog, but feel free to ask questions :-) Bees are a very confusing subject!

Overcrowded?

With all this great weather recently the bees don't really seem to know if they are coming or going, having taken their honey and reducing the hive size down to just a brood box for the winter I was faced with a lot of bees outside the hive most days this week, so time to check and see if I can work out why, also time to think about feeding them so the colony won't starve over the winter.

I prepared the feed and got everything ready and then opened the hive, only to find that every brood frame was full of honey, so much so that there was very little brood and no space for any eggs to be laid, the poor old Queen must have been crossing her legs! My concern then was without any eggs being laid would there bee enough bees to survive the long haul through winter, the older bees having been exhausted with all the very late foraging?

So on the spur of the moment a quick change of plan, obviously no need to feed them, but I wanted more space in the brood box for the queen, so one goes a super again and five drawn frames that I had just weeks before harvested the honey from, I'm hoping the bees will fill these and then make space for egg laying?

But who really knows what goes through a colony's mind, will have to wait and see. Will also have to decide just when to put the apiguard in to treat the varroa, once in the hive definitely no more honey will be fit to be harvested.

Decisions decisions!!

Masonry bees in Alderney

I saw these bees living in a section of an old stone wall with people walking past taking no notice, I really hope that somebody doesn't decide to repoint the wall, the bees have been very busy, I'm guessing they are Red Masonry Bees?

Pictures aren't bad for a mobile phone.

Also think I found a Manuka tree on the island, this has got my mind working overtime!!!!

Final harvest of 2011 finished.......

......... or is it?

Well I managed to get another 13 jars and there maybe another one to come in a few days once all the honey has drained out of the wax cappings. So all in all at total of 45 1/2lb jars. Which if I sold would be about £130, so not bad for a supposedly bad year for honey.

But I did notice that the frames I left outside the hive that were only partially capped the bees left the capped cells until last to clear, so in morning will pop out and see if they have left any capped and cleared the uncapped, so may be able to squeeze a little bit more out of them.

Once they have cleaned those frames will need to start the pre winter feeding to stock them up for the months ahead.

PS next time I harvest must avoid getting a blister on inside of my thumb spinning out the honey, really painful!!!

That film

Ok life has stood still a bit today, don't know if you have ever seen the film I mentioned in part 1? The Lake House, if you haven't recommend you watch it, but not a film to sit and watch alone, meant for sharing.

Part 3

OK I might have to take it back about men multitasking!! The washing needs taking out and this film is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be, so will need to focus all my attention on it, well expect I can manage another cup of Darjeeling :-)

As you can see the garden is a bit of a no go zone for humans, best leave the ladies to it, and the honey is nearly all drained into the container.

Honey jar filling later, my guess 10 jars :-)

Part 2

A frame of capped honey, not quite full but it will have to do.

Uncapping with with a needle sharp comb as Aman taught me to do last weekend, it's a fiddly process but worth the effort, it means more wax stays on the frame and will be less work for the bees next year.

An uncapped frame ready to be spun out.

The amber nectar, slowing pouring into the straining sieve.

2011's final harvest (Part 1)

It's now approaching midday as I sit on my sofa updating my blog, while the last of the honey strains through the sieves, the garden is a complete no go zone as some very busy ladies are salvaging the surplus honey and putting in the brood box, well hope they are, more of that later. Now where was I? Ok yes, drinking Darjeeling first flush, honey jars in dishwasher, washing on and watching The Lake House with Sandra Bullock, (mmm) and wow what a house too, could seriously live there, who said men can't multitask!! :-)

Ok where to start!!

I've decided today is the day to take what honey I can and then get the bees to move the rest back into the brood box for the winter.

As you can see I only managed to get three more frames and they were cut comb frames, but hey will try spinning them out, bet the whole lot honey and comb ends up in the bottom of the spinner!

These are the frames not quite ready, that I have left out for the bees to take back into the hive.

Well here goes..............

Last squeeze

Off to Bournemouth in a bit to decorate Robyn's room at uni, but before I go will put the clearing board back in the hive and have one last go tomorrow to squeeze some honey out or collect a bit more honey comb.

Then not too sure really what to do, do I leave the super on for the winter or put the frames outside the entrance so that the bees can move it all back into the hive but in doing so move it to the brood box so it is closer to them in those cold months? Having seen how quickly they moved the residue of last weekends extraction inside I'm tempted to do the later and then put a feed on before finally treating them for varroa.

Bee Clean

Busy bees collecting all the honey left in the extractor and in the honeycomb, they will take this all back inside the hive and fill the honey comb again, who knows I might get to extract it this year, if not they can use it to get them through the winter.

1st harvest is in

With the help of Aman the first harvest is in, not all of the frames were ready, I think my mistake was putting a second super on too soon so the bees worked on both and didn't finish filling or capping either.

Of the 10 frames in a super 6 were ready to harvest and only one frame of honeycomb. These 6 frames produced 16 lbs of honey, so my guess is that a full super should produce 27 lbs.

It's a pretty messy process, but don't think we wasted too much. Aman's previous experience keeping bees in Afghanistan came in very handy with him teaching me how to uncap the frames so as not to damage the wax too much.

We made a few mistakes spinning out the honey and damaged the foundation on a couple of frames, but it went quite well for a first attempt.

Today's the day

Today's the day, honey will be harvested, not feeling overly confident all seems very scary, the thought of all that work by the bees and it could be undone by me messing it up!

I put the clearing board in yesterday morning, a really hope the bees have all moved down into the brood box and my supers are clear of bees!

Ok well here goes.................

Honey, propolis and things

Well the ladies still haven't quite got the honey capped off in the supers for me to harvest, fingers crossed next week, well come hell or high water I will attempt to harvest next weekend, the season is getting late and I want them to be able to stock up again for the winter.

But at least I spotted the queen this time, I was beginning to get a bit worried especially as I hadn't seen too much pollen being flown in.

ok now propolis, bees make this from tree saps, honey and pollen to glue up the hive and fillholes, this is suppose to be really good stuff, a natural antibiotic, good for burns and loads of things, I collected this lump from the hive today, but just how on earth do you make it into something you can use for medical purposes, I'm guessing an evening on google coming up!

Honey not quite ready yet

The morning started out wet, but with the sun appearing wanted to check on how the ladies had been doing with the honey. Still not quite ready, guess will be another week or two yet.

But the jar labels have arrived so I think I now have everything ready for my first harvest :-)

I've retired to my bees in this mad world!!!

Had a few days off to watch cricket, today was going to be a no cricket day, but so far just been watching mad scenes on the news!

So thought would risk cutting the grass and then inspecting the bees, I'm not about to start cutting the grass in my bee suit to avoid that next sting! I was going ok until I felt some movement by my ear, getting closer to going into my ear, thinking quick i stuck my finger in my ear and retreated to the bathroom to get it out of my hair, sure enough there she was on my ear, that was close, I've had an ant in my ear, but a bee!!! Grass was finished without further event.

Hive inspection went well, think a few weeks from now I will be harvesting my first honey :-), one young lady did manage to sting my right thumb through my marigolds, no will see if I am allergic to bee stings! This time its my right thumb so I will be useless if it swells up like last time!!

So what to do with the rest of the day, the choices are to make a candle out of

this bees wax I have collected or some more work

on that skep I started what must be ages ago!

Bees and rain

We had very heavy rain earlier this evening and just by chance looked out at the bees and saw them behaving very strangely, I always thought bees didn't like flying in the rain but they were everywhere, they didn't look to happy! I know it doesn't look like it in the clip but it was hammering down, so much so that I thought I had ruined my camera, but it did eventually come back to life:-)

More queens than Henry!!!

ok these have to be the most demanding ladies ever! They surely can't bee looking for another queen already? Found a few queen cups which are early warning signals that the little ladies, surely they won't swarm this late in the season?

And if you look closely just below the two queen cups are some larvae in cells waiting to be capped off, will they be some of the last offspring from what could be the shortest reign ever!

Honey and pollen

I was hoping that this mornings inspection would show me honey ready for harvesting, but not quite ready yet the stored honey needs to be capped off with wax, if not then it will be too watery and no good. This photo shows some cells capped but most almost full and waiting to be capped.

The next photo shows pollen being stored ready for feeding the young larvae, it is all sorts of colours, the bees seem to store pollen from different plants in different cells!

Entrance block or not?

Read an article in Beecraft earlier and now think I know why the bees took offence to me cutting the grass the other day and had never before.

A couple of weeks ago I was watching the bees going in and out and could see there was a bit of a bottle neck going through the reduced entrance that the entrance block creates, I thought if they could go in and out quicker I would get more honey?

But I think what happened was that the bees got uncomfortable with the wider entrance to guard. They have to guard the entrance because other bees and wasps will rob honey from other colonies, I have often seen bees fighting with wasps at the entrance. Bees are also creatures of habit and they don't like change. The end result is that I think I made them a bit more aggressive and the lawn mower tipped them over the edge.

Yesterday evening I popped out and put the entrance block back in, hopefully they will feel a bit better and I can cut the grass again at a reasonable hour of the day! Time will tell.

PS Just noticed that I have posted over 100 posts, so a little bit of a milestone :-)

Bees and Borage

The little ladies have been busy today dodging the showers and collecting nectar and pollen from the Borage Plants that I grew from seed this year.

They are pretty vigorous plants so if you do ever get the urge to grow some give them plenty of space or they will crowd out other plants!

That said they are versatile if you can be bothered to deep fry the leaves or use the flowers in drinks and salads, I tried eating a flower today it wasn't that remarkable, but I can see why might be nice in a pimms :-)

PS Hand has recovered from last weekends sting.

The one armed naked beekeeper!! Ouch :(

OK after an afternoon in A&E I am questioning if I do love those bees! That sting last night has developed a bit to say the least, first photo is about an hour after the sting, second was in the A&E waiting room.

Looks is if somebody has just blown up a washing up glove!

So I now have cellulitis, a big dose of antibiotics and penicillin and arm in a sling for two days, if swelling keeps moving up arm it's into hospital and onto a drip!

Googled cellulitis, wish I hadn't!

So does this spell the end of my rather short journey into beekeeping? I hope not, but not keen to test out another bee sting too soon!

Thanks to Sue from beesnbeans who forwarded a month or so ago, an email about beekeepers reporting very bad bee stings this year which have lead to cellulitis, I wonder why, is there some new bee disease lurking around the corner?

Without Sue's email would I have bothered to go to the hospital?

I like my bees, Not!!!!

Ok, did I really say they were calm ladies? Well like all ladies they like to keep you guessing.

Decided to cut the grass earlier, have done it plenty of times before, this time they decided they didn't like me cutting the grass, they attacked!

End result, I ran over the lawn mower lead as I retreated and cut it into pieces, got a bee sting on my hand, not sure what my hand looks like now, a pretty impressive swelling! And finally got chased back into the house. Whoever said stand still and they will ignore you was gravely mistaken! :-)

Anyway on the good side, took delivery of a honey extractor yesterday, my birthday prezzie to myself. Jars are on their way, all I need now are some labels.

Does anybody have any idea what I should call my honey, "Whyteleafe Honey" sounds a bit boring?

Ok it all looks quiet outside now, going to get that grass finished!!

My ladies are pretty calm

Forgot to mention in last post that when I had finished inspecting the hive yesterday I went to unzip my suit and realised had left the veil completely undone!!! I'm very very glad the ladies were in a nice easy going mood:-)

Can any body spot the proud mum of all my lovely ladies?

Looks like honey this year after all :-)

Checked on how my ladies were doing yesterday, they have been busy, many were flying in laden with pollen, so much they were crash landing.

Opened hive and was so pleased to see for the first time ever the girls were building honey comb in the super, a quick check showed the frames being filled with honey:-)

So time to add another super, this time one for honey comb.

Swarm continued

Despite two beekeepers attending and taking away those bees that I wrote about on Sunday there still appears to be a lot of them left behind and they seem to have taken up residence in a garden wall. If they are still there on Thursday evening have said I will pop down and see if I can collect them, should be fun. Logic says that there can't bee a queen left, but stranger things have happened :-)

A hot night for the bees

Ok it's 11.30 and was just off to bed, bees are still up and about, I wonder if it is the heat? Popped out to check on them, and decided to ventilate the hive a bit more, not the best of ideas in just boxers, wonder what the neighbours would think! Well hey tonight almost the naked beekeeper!! Escaped with no stings, wonder if they will thank me?

PS colleague at work said today that the bee colony I sold was doing really well very prolific, fingers crossed when I open hive in next few days will see some activity in storing honey for me in the supers :-) , ok ok for all those who have asked for a jar. Just so as I don't forget anybody please remind me, think I have everybody but don't want to miss somebody, just comment on here or on facebook :-)

Swarm

Had my first call about a swarm yesterday evening, an old friend Mike who lives not too far from the family home had a load of bees in front garden of his house and neighbours.

I was due at Robyn's dance show, she was awesome, so declined, but did call Mike and Sue from BeesandBeans and they went along, by the time they had got there swarm had moved on leaving about twenty bees on the grass in which they found a queen, so not a complete waste of time.

Has got me thinking after my recent bee sale, perhaps I should up my number of colonies? take a frame with eggs in and put it in my nuc and see if I can raise a new queen and colony from scratch?

Aman, ok need to explain, Aman is a young cricketer I am helping towards achieving his dream of playing cricket for England. Ok Aman used to help a beekeeper when he was younger and back in Afghanistan, he is absolutely adamant that I need more colonies, he is a surprising fountain of knowledge on bees, maybe I should listen?

Stores are low

A quick inspection tonight, whilst there are some stores in the hive there doesn't seem much, with the new queen very busy laying eggs they must be getting through a lot of honey.

No sign of any activity in the way of building out honey comb in the super I added a few weeks ago. Hopefully they will start soon or it will be no honey again this year! :-( But guess there is still time.

I think part of the problem maybe that bees don't like to build out new foundation and create cells to store honey and having no honey last year I have no super frames with built out comb to give them a head start, was thinking that perhaps I should drop a super frame into the end of the brood box where they are more willing to create comb on new foundation and then swap it up to the super every week to try and get them to store honey up there? But probably best to let them be, they will do what they want to when they want to.

Will continue to feed them all the time they aren't filling the supers, I now use a tray feeder, the bees take the sugar solution from inside the plasticstrip in the middle, this stops them all drowning in the solution, well it does if they don't dislodge it in their hurry to get to the food, I have taped it down this year!

A beekeepers cure for Gout and Arthritis?

Ok, vaguely bee orientated, I was at cricket watching Aman play for Surrey's Academy a few weeks ago and got into conversation about bees with an older gentleman which was soon joined by another.

Think I must ave mentioned bees as I do from time to time! Anyway he said that he used to suffer from gout and his wife had to use walking sticks for her arthritis, but an older gentleman had told him about a natural remedy, god knows how old the older gentleman was?

Three key ingredients, Aspinals organic cider vinegar, (has to be organic), black molasses and beekeeper's honey, (not that junk from supermarket), a teaspoon of each mixed in half a glass of warm water, drunk once a day.

I filed away the info in a dark recess of my mind for a rainy day, low and behold, Selsdon CC were playing at home on a rainey day and I bumped into Mr Miller walking around the boundary, how's the gout I asked, as you do! Not too bad but still aware of it, and conscious that it might be on it's way back. Try this old remedy I suggest.

Paul disappeared soon after and rang me from Waitrose, "what were those ingredients?" Told him, but did politely suggest that beekeeper's honey won't be at Waitrose.

I though no more of it until a text this morning, "Early days I know but your suggestion for gout cure = f*****g miracle. Thanks mate, feet haven't felt this free for years!"

So if you know anybody that suffers, tip them off, it is also supposed to work for arthritis, so it's not only the bee sting that helps that!

New colony off to a new home

The bees are off to a new home, they were collected this morning and driven back into Kent, where I collected my original colony from, it's a small world even for bees :-).

There endith my first commercial transaction in the bee world.

Next challenge isn't really down to me, but it would be nice to see my bees start to produce some honey stores in the supers, so many people have asked for a jar. Come on ladies get cracking on the honey front :-).

New bee colony all packed

My new bee colony is all packed and ready for collection, transferred the bees into the buyers transit box, they didn't appreciate it, there were bees everywhere, one managed to sting me through my gloves! But now they are all settled down.

I'm a bit worried about his transit box, the lid is very loose, can imagine it coming adrift in his car as he drives home, will need to tape it up pretty securely.

Bees will be collected early Saturday morning, so late Friday night I will close up the entrance to the hive, hopefully all the bees will be tucked up in bed, so in morning there won't be any flying bees that get left behind.

It all looks a bit messy, the box has a completely ventilated roof, so have had to cover it from the rain but still let it ventilate.

So this Saturday will be my first income from the bees, I never expected a year ago that I would be splitting a colony and creating a new queen, it all sounded far too complicated.

This bee keeping thing can be very rewarding, I'm not talking about the cash side! :-)

Warning, nectar levels low!

Just got an email from BBKA, warning all beekeepers that because of the very long dry spell, plants are not producing enough nectar and as a result colonies could end up starving!

I did think when I inspected on Tuesday that stores of honey were low.

So put feed tray on the main hive and increased frequency of feeding to the small colony that I am selling.

Might not be much of a honey crop this year, especially as we are yet to go through the "June Gap", this is the month when there aren't many flowering plants and bees struggle to feed themselves, but who knows when the June Gap will be this year, the growing season seems to be all over the place, maybe the June Gap happened in May and that is why honey stores are low in the hives!! Anyway the long and the short of it is that feeding is needed now otherwise the colonies might starve to death. Fingers crossed might get some honey this August, a lot of people will be disappointed if I don't :-(.

Made contact with the new beekeeper who wants my new colony, will transfer bees to his box next week and he will collect them next Saturday.

New Queen is up and running

Ok can you spot the new Queen, it's a lot easier in real life, she is roughly in the middle of the picture, just to the left of her are two uncapped larvae,(white looking cells), her daughters in the making.

Well it's a relief to see that the small Queen I saw a week or so ago has now made her mating flight and is laying eggs, on a good day could lay 1500 eggs!

The colony as a whole was looking good, plenty of stored honey and pollen, but on downside no honey being stored in the super for me to harvest, maybe the hiccup with the new Queen has slowed things a bit.

The other colony in the nuc box was looking good, no sign of the Queen but she has obviously been busy, could see larvae and capped brood.

I'm happy now that I can sell the nuc colony

Regicide

Well it looks like the I have a queen in the main hive, I can only assume that the small queen I have just seen has killed off the competition. Mind you she is very small, I wonder will she be up to the challenge of keeping a colony of 40,000 bees happy?

It maybe that she is still a virgin queen and is yet to make her mating flight, it's very possible because there is no sign of eggs or larvae and the few capped brood that remain must be the last of her mothers brood in the colony?

Thinking about it logically she can't be too big otherwise she won't be able to fly, once she has had her fun on the wing the workers will fatten her up. I hope so anyway, she was hard to spot.

Now I will wait to see if eggs, larvae and new brood appear before I sell the nuc to a friend of a beekeeping colleague at work.

It's a big relief finding the queen, this beekeeping can be quite stressful! :-)

Empty Queen cells, but.......

.......... no sign of any new queen in the main hive! Hope she was just hiding somewhere, however I did see a small amount of larvae on one frame and theory has it that because the old queen as removed 13 days ago they might be to do with a new queen, however as the queen cells were capped 13 days ago I have no idea when the queen would have hatched and then a week later made her mating flight, all sounds a bit improbable to me!

Will have to wait until next time to see if there is a queen in there, if not then guess it will be the quickest a colony had been reunited with the old queen they were trying to get rid of, failing that I need to buy a queen on the internet and get it posted a bit quick!

On the plus side the old queen seems very happy in the nucleus box and no signs of any queen cells in there.

Queen cell cull

I made my quick call to Mike from Beesandbeans to see if I had made the right decisions, seems almost got it right, but I had left too many queen cells in the old hive.

So tonight ably assisted by Russ we got rid of all but two queen cells, the first queen to hatch usually will kill the other one, failing that they wll fight it out, winner takes the colony.

The photo shows couple of queen cells and Russ getting himself mentally prepared :-).

Russ's verdict - "It's good, weird that they are all just flying around us"

PS That's Joe hard at work in the background cooking dinner, he choose that over helping with the bees!

Queen cell, and another and another.........

I opened the hive today, not really knowing what I would find.

The Queen cups I had seen on the last inspection were now fully fledged queen cells, with more on the way, there must have been over a dozen of them!

Fortunately I had found the queen on the super frame for drone culling, so placed that frame into my nuc box along with the only three frames that had no queen cells on, making up the remainder of the nuc with some new brood frames.

These lady bees can be quite brutal, the queen is less than a year old and already they want her out!

So now in theory I will have two hives, so where do I put the second one? Dad's seems the ideal solution, popped down to see him and agree where to put the hive. Eileen casually mentions that she is allergic to wasp stings, the next one might kill her! So not a good idea to put the hive at dads, will have to put my thinking cap on.

I was a bit worried that I might not have dealt with the queen cells correctly so put a call out to Mike of Beesnbeans, it seems I have done ok with the exception of leaving too many queen cells in the original hive. So must get back in there and destroy all but two of the queen cells.

Exciting stuff, I wonder if I will get to see the virgin queen's flight? Or will I end up with no bees at all!

Big trouble in little China!!

As I was just finishing my last blog suddenly heard a lot of crying outside by a little girl, think about three gardens down from mine, then she was shouting I've seen a bee! Think mum took her indoors but could still hear the crying, I hope one of my bees didn't sting her!

Are the days of a hive in my garden numbered! :-(

If they could see what's on this video I think the days would be numbered, guess would be pretty frightening to anybody who doesn't know much about bees other than they sting you!

Today's inspection

I thought I would try and capture a bit on film today, almost forgot, as you can see the hive is open and the first frame is out on the hanger.

My god there's a lot of bees in there, has to be getting up to full strength now, anybody's guess whether there's 30K or 40K bees in there, I knew all was well with the queen because plenty of pollen was being flown in, it was until 9th frame (the slightly cleaner one on the video), that I found her royal highness, this frame is my drone culling super frame, I wanted to cut the drone brood away but she seemed quite happy on it so left well alone.

We're into the swarm season now and whilst she is last years queen there is always a chance the colony might think about replacing her, so a careful inspection needed to catch any queen cells (queen cells mean a swarm is on it's way!), I found a few queen cups, these are like practice queen cells, so does this mean they are thinking about a new queen? Only time will tell, I had better have that nuc box to hand for future inspections so that I can put the frame with the queen on into the nuc with a few other frames from the hive to give her a start. The theory is that then the colony won't swarm and I can either re-unit the colony later in the summer or allow her to create a new hive.

I did see a few waggle dances on the frames, first time I have seen them :-)

I finished the inspection with a sprinkling of icing sugar to encourage

them to groom each other and in the process dislodge a few varroa mites.

When I put the roof back on I noticed lots of bees had left the hive, never seen this before, I wonder what that's all about?

Beeknapping?

I was watching the bees this morning flying in pollen when I noticed a worker bee on top of another bee on the landing board, nothing unusual in that, it can get a bit chaotic there, but this pair seemed to be behaving strangely.

Then all of a sudden the top bee took off carrying the other bee, she circled about the hive a few times and then flew off into the distance looking like the space shuttle with a huge fuel pod underneath.

Two things, wow I didn't know bees could carry that much and two just what were they doing? Was this a bee kidnapping? I guess I'll never know, if anybody has any suggestions, gratefully received :-)

Party Party Party

So just what do bees do at 00.15 at night, they obviously don't sleep!

Perhaps they are just party animals? :-)

Bees rally round

I did a quick varroa count when I got in this evening, only two which is very good over two days, long may that level of infestation continue, a big change from last year when there were too many to count!

Couldn't resist the temptation to see what was happening with the brood comb I had put back into the hive last night, then there were very few bees looking after the hatching young. I gently took off the roof and cautiously, (well I didn't have a bee suit on!), lifted the cover board a little bit, the brood comb was smothered with bees, so fingers crossed the young bees will hatch and join the colony, next weekend I'm hoping they will all have hatched and the hive can return to some semblance of order.

Will leave it to the bees to tidy up

I thought I would try and upload a video, so apologies for the camera work and for my shadow! :-)

This was this morning, I had put all the old brace comb including some brood in a nuc box which I have left next to the hive, I was hoping that during the day the bees would migrate back to the hive, I'm guessing there might be a thousand bees in the nuc box. Too many to lose from the colony.

I popped out about an hour ago to check their progress in moving honey and stored pollen and found that the nuc box was almost empty of bees, but I did spot some young bees hatching (do bees hatch!!) out of their capped cell, you can just make out two of them in the left hand photo below, because they can't fly in the first few weeks of their life they would never make the journey back to the main hive. So I suited up and set too moving the remaining brood brace comb back into the main hive!! I didn't want to go back to the mess that that hive looked on Saturday morning so decided to put a second queen excluder on top of the supa then an eke box so that I could stack the brood in one corner, where they might be kept warm by the bees. Not sure what their chances are but got to be better than leaving them in the nuc as most of the bees had left them to their own devices. Time will tell, well by my reckoning they should have all hatched by my next inspection next weekend.

There where two part frames of honey stores, these I left in the nuc so that the foraging bees can move it back into the main hive in the coming days. If they don't I'll just have to eat it :-)

PS forgot to mention that I didn't spot any evidence of wax moth in my inspection on Saturday, fingers crossed :-)

Will they forgive me!!

ok, today I decided it was time to complete the sort out of the mess I had made of the hive last year. Bloody hell did that sentence make any sense! Perhaps I've had one beer to many tonight :-)

Opening the hive this is what confronted me, well I knew it would be like this, I had just forgotten the mess!

The plan was to remove the brood and a half and put as many of the full brood frames into the brood box with the queen, time to be a bit had on the mess. But just what was I going to do with the surplus brace comb and bits of frame extension, I know stick them in the nucleus box that the bees originally came in, put that next to the hive and the bees that were all over the brace comb would make their way back to the main colony. They didn't seem that keen to move, so guess should leave them to sort themselves out? Bet I am out there again tomorrow fiddling about with them, I really hope they forgive me for all this messing about

Thirsty Bees

A nice sunny day and it's the first time since I made the "bee bar" last year that I have seen the bees stop off to get some water for the colony, must be a bit warm inside the hive.

Wax Moth trap

Ok read up a bit on these moths, the bees will try and control, so fingers crossed, but if they are in there then it means there are more outside waiting to get in!

Found this simple trap on the internet

Take a 2 litre plastic pop bottle and drill a 1 inch hole just below the slope on the neck, then add 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1 half cup vinegar and finally 1 banana peel. Wait a few days till it starts to ferment, then tie it into a tree close to the hives. This trap will draw the wax moth, they enter the hole can't get out and drown in the liquid

I have all the ingredients, bottle is drilled, look out Whyteleafe's wax moths Peter's going to get you :-) Hmm only one problem no trees in my garden!:-)

Ok, so now I have wax moth!

Somebody did say when I started that keeping bees isn't straight forward! Well yesterday I thought I would have a quick clean up of my varroa inspection floor and found two caterpillars, wax moths seem to have found my hive!

Lovely little creatures, in flies the moth, lays god knows how many hundred eggs and then the little darling caterpillars set about eating the wax, tunnelling this way and that! And what do the bees do, well absolutely sod all, for an animal that is very protective of their colony they just ignore them and let them destroy the hive.

But it's ok for them to manage to get up my jeans trouser leg yesterday! I have never walked so slowly up the garden and then ever so slowly remove my jeans with the sound of buzzing working it's way higher up my thigh, I can't believe I managed to get the jeans off without being stung!

Anyway back to the wax moth, now I will have to inspect really closely and kill every caterpillar I see, including those burrowing inside the wax honey comb. Next purchase very quickly is some long nosed surgical tweezers to get to those inside the honey comb, pull them out killing them in the process.

I love a challenge, deep joy! :-)

wow and double wow

I was just looking at at piece of honey comb with some honey stores still on it, temptation got the better of me, so ate it, wow and double wow, I never knew honey could taste so good!! This has got to be the way to eat honey:-)

I'm hooked with just one bite:-)

Queen seen, phew :-)

Late afternoon when things had quieted down I dived back into the hive to take out the drone brood on the piece of brace comb that I had put back in the hive.

Life is never simple in since Monday the worker bees had been busy joining all the bits of prace comb to together in one lump, they certainly work hard!

I cut away each piece finding that neither the work brood or drone brood had hatched, the drone brood i put out for the birds, I seems harsh but it's the best way to keep varroa mite levels down by natural methods. The worker brood I put aside to put back in the hive.

Then it was time to find the queen on the lower brood box, I soon spotted her, phew, on the fifth frame I looked on, happily walking about amongst her workers. So decided rather than upset them any more would leave them be and not look at all the frames, can do that next weekend.

Then I realised I'd forgotten to take any photos, so quickly took a photo this morning to help explain what brace comb looks like and also show the frame extensions that I had to remove.

Not much pollen!

Hmm decided if weather was nice today that despite what I said in last blog would have a quick look in hive, well the weather is nice, but as you can see bees are a bit busy.

Think I still do need to check as not much pollen being flown into the hive, you can see one bee with pollen but there really should be lots of bees flying in with it, so rather than a quick look will go for a much more detailed inspection later today. Anyway I need to get that surplus drone brood out of the hive, well that's if it hasn't hatched yet and perhaps swap a brood frame in lower box for a smaller super frame so that I can cull drone brood and in turn varroa mite larvae as part of my varroa integrated management.

Why am I doubting that I saw the queen last time and she isn't in the bottom brood box? Bees, they're worse than having kids for worry, ok perhaps not :-)