Moving house

Ok forgot to mention the other big event coming up, I am moving house, not too far and that is the problem, it's less than three miles, so technically it means that my bees might be visiting the new garden already, but I can't believe that it just seems too far for a bee to fly!


So I need to find somewhere to put the hive for a week or so, that is over three miles from here and over three miles from new house, any volunteers? :-) email me, peter.armfield1@btinternet.com


As to actually moving a full hive, that should be fun in my car, not just once but twice! Really not looking forward to that, but hey ho all part of the fun of keeping bees.

Hope they will like there new home, looking forward to filling the garden with bee friendly plants and perhaps another colony or two!

No Queen again!

Well it seems like there will be no honey this year, this new colony has struggled a bit, and now there is no Queen, can only think she swarmed when I was on holiday, they say beekeepers should never go away in swarming season, but bugger that, I needed some sun :-).
I looked last weekend and there were some empty queen cells which should mean that there would be a new queen, but no sign, was too early for her to start laying eggs, there were also three queen cells unopened. Today all queen cells are open and still no queen, will give it one more week and then I will order a new queen online and get her posted to work. £35, but it's the only way the colony stands an outside chance of surviving.
That should be fun, hope nobody opens my post in error that day!

Queen cups, bees, Tunisia, lawn mowers and popeye! :)

Not the best looking Popeye!

A strange mix I hear you say? Well they are a bit interlinked, I'm off for a week in the sun in Tunisia next weekend, never a good time to leave your bees in the height of summer, what summer I hear you say? Well it has been a lovely day today so had a few aims in the garden, cut grass, check bees and top up tan, am concerned my legs might be construed as a aviation hazard and may well be seen from outer space!

I digress, back to the bees, needed to check that they would be ok while I was away, last time I looked I couldn't find the queen, no joy this time either, and wow upon wow some queen cups too, that means the colony is beginning to think about swarming, well possibly and if that happens while I am away bang goes any chance of a honey crop this year!:-(, hey ho not much I can do about other than leave an empty hive out and hope that if they do swarm they go in there. The check done had to leave them alone for a couple of hours, valuable tanning time wasted! :-)

This is the right way up

But did manage to catch a few rays before grass cutting time, these new bees really don't like my lawn mower, had to take drastic action and wear my bee suit, saw a few neighbours looking, gathered quite a crowd really! They must think I am mad, that wasn't a question, so don't answer it :-). You can see how hacked off they looked in first photo which also has me making a good impersonation of Popeye, how photo genic!!! I'm glad I didn't go with auto spell check on that word! :-)

Mission accomplished, grass cut, bees checked and the faintest of tan lines, I think I am going to suffer in Tunisia, pool here I come:-)

Bumblebee relocation

Had a message on Facebook over jubilee weekend from an ex colleague, Chris, whose parents had some bees causing a worry just outside their back door in a bird box, could I help. Thought they would be Bumblebees, but a bee's a bee and don't like to see any of them destroyed, not that I think Chris's parents would do that.

Nice and peaceful, just before I really hacked them off

I arranged to remove them late last Thursday evening, so they would mostly be tucked up in the bird box, got there a bit early and after a nice cuppa set to, initially I approached the bird box and started to remove the ivy around it without my bee suit on, big mistake, they may look cuddly, but they can be pretty angry buggers when disturbed, perhaps I should have bunged up the box entrance first!! So a small delay while they calmed down and went back indoors and then suited up I bunged up the entrance and too down the box.

Anybody following me home must have wondered what I was doing driving so slowly especially over all those sleeping policemen! :-), well would they trust a very old bird box full of bees in the boot wouldn't fall apart? Anyway once home I had decided would temporarily fix them on outside of my garden fence, my intention being to ask my uncle if he wouldn't mind having them in his garden, well it's more a woodland.

Their temporary home

These bees eat wood, can you see damage to entrance?

He was ok with the idea so I arranged to drop them over earlyish on Sunday morning, the best laid plans of mice and men and bees! I had a late night on the wine, did remember to block up entrance before bed, overslept a bit and when I went to move them they had managed to create a new entrance at the back by eating out of the box! Thank god that didn't happen in my car! I couldn't move them now, too many bees would be out flying, even the Queen Bumblebee forages, she's like a flying mouse:-)

So what type of Bumblebee are they, can you work it out from this photo and link?

http://bumblebeeconservation.org/

Pimms o'clock garden party

Well maybe not Pimms, a pint of orange squash, with a generous portion of ice cubes. And garden party? h
Hmm, the guest was probably me, my little ladies allowing me to join them as they sipped some of the old purple nectar. Me, well a few pages of the kindle and a little David Attenborough cameo :-)

Bee's been beelocated

Bee beelocation finished and it felt really good on the last lift to feel how much heavier the hive was compared to the first lift, the colony has been growing fast in this good weather, there are loads of bees inside, although a long way from full strength of 50,000 bees, they are also struggling to get enough stores of honey in, consuming all the nectar they are collecting.

That might not bode well for the "June gap", the time when historically few flowers are in bloom in England, mind you I suspect that all this strange weather will mean that the plants are pretty confused too!

Waste not want not I have added a super and put the granulated honey stores from the old hive in there in the hope that the bees can salvage some to help them out, I put the frames in the freezer first to kill anything off and then scratched open the cells to help them on their way. In the video you will see that I have let the home forlorn looking hive open and put some brood frames in a black plastic box, will let them rob those for a few days and then will dispose of comb and foundation, ready to start again with a second colony, hopefully will collect that in a couple of weeks time.

But first up need to scorch the old hive to kill off any nasties and must remember to order some brood foundation.

PS my neighbours must think I am mad filming bees in just a pair of shorts, could feel the bees flying into my back as they were returning to the hive, no stings so far this year, amazingly! :-)

Three feet or three miles

Well eventually the old hive has passed, well almost, the queen lies dead in the bottom of the hive and there are perhaps 10 bees still alive.

The new colony is struggling along, although they seem active, they have no stores, (honey), and they are not building more comb so that the colony can increase in size, I have tried feeding them with sugar solution but they won't take it, so now decided that perhaps I can use the surplus stores from the old colony, I've broken the wax capping on a few frames and left them out for the new colony to take into their hive, a bit risky because it can encourage other bees to rob the honey.

The short video shows the old and the new hive, the new hive is much to close to the house and will need moving to the position of the old hive, there is an old law of bee keeping about moving hives three feet or three miles, anything in between and the bees will get confused and return to the original location and get lost, so guess it will take three moves over a few weeks to move them down the garden.

Can you find my new Queen Bee?

Pollen in bound

Today has been the only day in last week forecast for sun and the next five days look like rain too, well according to my I Phone!

I took this film earlier this morning it was showing 6 degs, so bang goes that story about bees only flying when it's warmer than 10 degs

If you look closely you can see the bees flying in pollen, I wonder what plant is giving them that bright orange pollen?

Anyway they seem a bit happier with me, as you can see they let me up close to the hive without seeming to notice me, maybe just maybe they will let me cut the grass! :-), well they might but the weather won't it's raining again, I make that everyday bar one since the hose pipe ban started!

Umbrella beekeeping

I was rather hoping that I might get some good weather over the weekend so that I could transfer the new colony into their new home, but no joy, in the end today I decided that come what may I would need to transfer them, Aman's cricket match for Surrey 2nd XI was cancelled so he volunteered to help.
So armed with that vital piece of beekeeping equipment, an umbrella, we set to, the smoker then decided to go out with the lid off the nuc, had to move a bit quick as the bees were less than impressed, no detailed checking of the frames, just get them in the hive and close up quick. But couldn't help but see what looked like queen cells, will have to be on my guard, this was a swarm last year so the queen may well be past her sell by date, can ill afford them to swarm again, now caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, I shouldn't really disturb them again and looking at the weeks weather forecast it seems to be rain and more rain, but I really need to get in there and look!
Later I did take a quick peek in the other old colony two, didn't take any frames out but could see the bees were limited to just one bee space, time is running out for this colony, so if I have got some queen cells in the new colony them just maybe I can kick start another colony?
I wonder if I can wait until next Saturday to check out the colonies for real?
What I do know though is that the new bees looked pretty hacked off with me, hope they have short memories!

Bees all belted up

I think I have been here before, an early morning drive from Gillingham with a colony of bees sitting beside me in the car, this time though the lid wasn't secured, is no sharp breaking! Journey home successfully negotiated, but decided as such a miserable day will leave them in the nuc and keep fingers crossed that better weather is here on Sunday or Monday so I can transfer them into a hive, at the same time can check up on the old colony, not that I am expecting to see much in there.

These bees seem a lot darker in colour, they are a swarm that was caught late on last year so they may not survive through to summer either, Clive the supplier refused to take any money for them which is a sign surely that he's not 100% convinced they will make it through! Oh well nothing ventured nothing gained. On opening the door they were soon out and about checking out the local area, one even decided that perhaps she need a lift back to Gillingham, either that or she has good taste in cars :-)