Overdue Photo

Ok this isn't today, think it was that one day of sun a few weeks ago, this is their new home, bet they still object to me cutting the grass, my new neighbours will think I'm a right weirdo cutting grass in my bee suit!

No need to agree! :-)

Bee'n too long since last update

I suppose not much really happens over the winter months, so I've been a bit lazy with my blog. With April a few days away things should be happening in the hive, eggs being laid new bees hatching, bees flying, but just for a change good old English weather is causing havoc with bee colonies across the country.

This time last year it was 20 degrees, now it's bloody freezing, my girls probably not flown more than a hand full of times, if even that many, warnings are coming from all directions colonies are starving to death! What to do, was always told never open hive in very cold weather but now being told open hive check for honey stores, if they are too far away from the ball of bees then move them closer, don't disturb the bees though! So how does that work??

Had a long chat with my colleague Stuart who has kept bees for years and years, he's worried too, between us we have come up with feeding the girls icing fondant put right on top of the brood frames and under the crown board, so will need to flatten out the icing fondant so will fit, not an overly complicated or hi-tech solution, but hive will only be open for a few fleeting moments.

Fingers crossed they get through this winter, if it ever ends! It would be nice to get some honey this year, well it would be nice just to have a strong healthy colony.

Now that I am in new house I am definitely getting a second hive, want a bee hotel too this year, another little project, I knew all that bamboo in garden would come in handy :-)

Speed bumps and bees!

After searching for a temporary home for my colony while I move house my sister-in-law Sue came up trumps and my bees are now neighbours to a couple of dozen other hives at the Croydon Beekeepers apiary at Hartley Down allotment.

Secured and ready to go, or so I thought!

I had to wait until they had tucked up in bed in the evening, then strap the hive together and tape up the entrance. Then just a case of carrying them to the car, for once I was glad they weren't a thriving colony with several supers full of honey, honey is dammed heavy!, once in the car I had a serious panic attack, bees were coming out of the back of the hive, the mesh floor had come adrift while I was carrying it, all that had stopped them coming out was my groin!! Bloody hell, that would have taken some explaining in A&E:-), anyway some more tape and the bees where secured, well fingers crossed.

So off to the apiary, why does Sat Nav take me over every speed hump in South London! There ought to be a mode that avoids speed humps! :-) Sat Nav even tried to take me down a road that a horse would have struggled on!

Temporary home and near neighbours

Once at their new home it was pretty straight forward, in fact all to easy, tape off. mesh floor re-pinned and bees were mingling with their new neighbours.

Their next journey will be to their new home in my new garden, lets hope the effort will be worth it and they survive the winter.

PS How do I get grass stains out of my best linen trousers?

ConfusedPeter.com!

Well queen no 63 is out of her travelling cage, but doesn't look like she's a prospective mum yet! In fact I'm seriously confused, when I last looked when I put her in there were no larvae or brood, (wax capped larvae, bees in the making), now there is larvae and drone brood, (male bees), definitely nowhere near enough time for her to lay eggs that develop that much!

So maybe there is a drone laying queen or bee in there somewhere! Hopefully they have had a fight and the drone layer is now history! So next time I look I need to see serious amount of larvae and worker bee brood, without that the colony is doomed to fail, it's late in the season and they need bee numbers up high.

Just to confuse me more I decided to destroy all the old empty queen bee cells, only to find two larvae developing in them! Won't be developing now!

The bee world is complicated, I wonder what is going through their minds? Who really knows, they've been here for 60 million years so they must know what they are doing, guess need to sit back and trust nature.

Come on girls.

Royal Femail delivery

Well queenie arrived in CityWest Home's reception this morning, care of Royal Femail, got a call, your bees are here, they are buzzing.

It then took thirty minutes to get back to desk, think this must have been one of most popular deliveries to the office, so now the proud owner of a new queen, No 63, and a small entourage of workers to keep her company.

Best name, ok only name, Beeyonce! :-), 1st Prize a jar of honey, the downside it won't be until August 2013! :-(

They spent rest of day sitting in my filing tray, then into my pocket for train journey home. Suited up I had to get the six workers out of the queen travelling cage so that just she went into the hive in it. She then will stay in it until the worker bees in the hive have eaten their way past a barrier of food, by which time they should have accepted her smell and won't kill her by suffocation!

So now will have to wait a week to see if they accept her and she has started laying eggs, it's a race against time now, she has to lay a lot of eggs so that the colony can build up strength for the long winter ahead. Seems strange to talk about winter when we haven't had a summer yet! But for bees August is honey harvesting time and then they have to start getting ready to survive winter, the queen will stop laying in September, so for this colony it will be touch and go this winter! Fingers crossed, have given them an outside chance with this new queen.

In hive ready for her new team to eat their way in to rescue her

New queen bee in the post!

All very exciting, ordered a new queen bee and she's in the post to me, should arrive at work tomorrow, not sure who is more excited me or my colleagues! Talk of a naming competition on line and a little CityWest Homes t shirt for her!!:-), also been concerns, ranging from have I written a risk assessment to what food  and drink should they get in for her!:-)

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/