Stolen Hives

Sometime last night, Wed 30th May. I had two nucleus hives stolen from a farm complex on Holbeach Fen.  The boxes were brand new.


The only consolation is that they contained old queens, one white one blue and they both headed ferocious colonies, which is why they were in nucs while their hives are being requeened.


I hope when they are opened they cut in half whoever took them


i'll post a couple of pictures of similar nucs when the rain stops.






I spent the day clearing the site, miserable weather, so I won't lose too many flying bees.  All the hives here had newly mated queens and being bumped around the Lincolnshire countryside in the rain is not the best start they could have.
This apiary was my nursery where I raise all my nucs and new queens.  It means that I will be producing a lot less colonies in the future.  
Its a sad fact that this theft would have been carried out by someone who calls himself a beekeeper, but being a beekeeper is more than just wearing the suit.

Drone culling

Drone culling is one way of reducing the numbers of varroa mites in a hive and is something I do throughout the active season.  Once a colony has reached the 6-7 frames of brood stage I remove one of the outer frames and place a super frame in the middle of the brood chamber, maintaining the 11 frames I use in a national brood chamber.  Because this frame is shorter than a normal brood frame the bees will construct 'wild' comb on the bottom of it and invariably the wild comb will be drone.  Once the majority of the drone has been capped I cut the wild drone comb from the bottom of the frame and place the frame back in its place in the brood chamber, ready for the cycle to repeat.  The removed drone comb will be checked for varroa before being recycled.

The life cycle of drones is better suited to varroa than either workers or Queens, so they prefer to lay their eggs in a drone cell, by removing this wild drone comb on a regular basis it is easy to monitor the levels and reduce the numbers of varroa.

Swarms, swarms and yet more swarms

This week has seen an explosion of swarms, I would guess the sudden increase in temperatures has triggered the swarming instinct, but I am taking ten or more calls a day from householders fairly keen to lose the new additions in the garden.

This was a large swarm in Tydd St Mary, just a few miles from me. I had dropped the main part of the swarm in the top of the hive before closing it, the rest are making their way in

This one was in a garden in Spalding, and 2 year old George thought they were lovely and wanted to play with them. The Bee Movie has a lot to answer for.

This one had been on the side of a greenhouse for several days before I was called and had been terrorising the local cat population that use the path as a right of way.  It had actually built a small patch of comb on the glass.










Unfortunately I am also taking calls from people who have sprayed the swarm with wasp poison and would like me to come and clear up the resulting mess.  Its sad that the first reaction of some people is to kill before finding out what it is they are killing

Local press

I had a visit from the Lincolnshire Free press who wanted to do an article about the importance of honeybees as pollinators.
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Bees help grow a third of our area’s food crop

Beekeeper Mike, providing a valuable resource to farmers in 

South Lincolnshire. Photo (MIKE DAVISON): SG270412-21MD

Published on Saturday 12 May 2012 06:00

BRITAIN has lost over half the honey bees kept in managed hives and wild honey bees are nearly extinct, according to new research.

Conducted by leading bee experts at the University of Reading, the research estimates it would cost UK farmers £1.8billion each year to hand-pollinate crops without bees.

Therefore beekeeper Mike, who breeds colonies for sale to new beekeepers, feels he is providing a valuable resource for farmers in south Lincolnshire.

Mike, who is based in the Holbeach area, has been keeping bees on and off since being quite young. At this time of year he has about 25 hives dotted around private land in the south of the county, the bees all helping to pollinate crops.

Mike says: “Without bees, we wouldn’t have a third of our food crop. It’s generally agreed bees increase yields by ten per cent and provide a more even fertilisation, so the crops come all at once rather than being staggered.”

Mike admits he finds working with bees fascinating and says a queen bee, which can live for five years, is “just an egg laying machine”, producing up to 1,500 each day.

He explained: “In the wild, they build a colony and there will be 75,000 bees in there and if they are working hard, they will only live for five weeks, so the queen bee constantly has to replace them.”

The main concern for beekeepers is swarming, when the colony decides it doesn’t have enough room and so creates a new queen bee who leaves the hive within a week, taking half the colony with her. To avoid loss of bees in this way, Mike visits his hives every five days.

Mike said: “If you are not around to catch them you have lost half your bees, probably lost your honey production that year and you have lost your experienced queen.”

The research was commissioned by Friends of the Earth, which is urging the Government to commit to a British bee action plan in order to save the important pollinators.

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First swarm of 2012

The first swarm call of 2012, early this morning a call from a gentleman called Dennis from Newton, a small North Cambridgeshire village.  The swarm had been in residence for two days and was tightly wrapped around the trunk of a beech.  They don't show you this kind of swarm collection in the books.

I placed a hive full of drawn comb quite close to the swarm. Handfuls of bees were carefully removed from the cluster and placed in the hive. Once two thirds of the swarm had been put in the hive the bees on the landing stage began to fan.  After about an hour and a lot of questions from Dennis and his neighbours we decided to allow the bees to settle in their own good time.  We will go back later this evening and hopefully recover a full hive.





We returned at 7.30 that evening to find most of the bees on the front of the hive, after trying for an hour or so to encourage the bees into the hive i surrendered and went for a welcome cup of tea from next door, Mabel and Chris.  By now it was getting dark and the temperature was dropping and still a large cluster clung to the outside of the hive.  So to last resorts, the hive and bees were wrapped in an old bed cover and gently place in the back of the car, the hive was placed in its permanent position at 10pm and unwrapped.

So to 7.30 the next morning, where are the bees, well a lot of them were outside the hive looking like they intended to take flight and leave, maybe just maybe this swarm have read the books and know that a national hive is not really big enough, so i gave them another brood box.......... Watch this space

Best Spring to worst Spring

How does this happen, i have the best Spring start-up in March that I can remember and by the end of April I am feeding my bees because they have just about consumed all the honey they had stored.  I am surrounded by fields of oil seed rape in full flower and its too cold and wet for the bees to fly, so they stay at home and eat honey, until it runs out and then they starve.

So I have spent the morning making even more tubs of fondant, a boiled sugar water solution that hardens as it cools.  These are 500gm containers of fondant and are in various stages of setting.  It becomes whiter as it hardens.
I have given  a tub to every hive, these are replacements just in case this weather continues.
English weather, gotta love it