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 :-)