2014 swarms

28 April
Like everything else this year the swarms have started early.  I had a call from an elderly lady in Spalding to say that a swarm had landed in her garden.  I receive a call from either her or her neighbors at least once a year.  A beekeeper used to live in one of the properties years ago and all the chimneys in the local area have colonies in them.  They seem to survive varroa, although I have no way of knowing how long each colony has occupied the chimneys.

It was a fairly large prime swarm and it took residence in a dwarf weeping laburnam tree, at least thats what I think it is.  I crawled under the branches and took this lying on my back, not an easy task in a beesuit.

I placed a hive on the ground directly underneath the swarm and gave the branch they were clinging to a sharp jolt.  A reasonable proportion of the bees fell onto the crownboard, which had the top feed holes left open, and immediately started to make their way inside.

Not a great photo of the hive but it was a very dull and overcast day and the flash went off.  It was such a dull day I was surprised to take a swarm call.
I left the bees to it and returned later that evening when they had all made their way into the hive.
The colony has now been relocated to a quarantine site,  I will check on them in a couple of days to see if the Queen is there and laying and I'll mark her pink, I use pink to mark swarm Queens as I find it the easiest colour to spot.
It will be requeened as soon as my first batch of homebred Queens is ready.



30 April
Another swarm from a regular in Pinchbeck village this time, about 3 miles from one of my apiaries.  This one again from their chimney and again low down, this time in a privet hedge.  And again a reasonable size.

Same procedure as last time.  And it will be requeened asap.


I have been asked why I requeen swarms.  There are several very good reasons to replace swarm Queens, I have no idea how old they are, or if they have unsuitable characteristics in their dna, bald or chalk brood for instance.  It would be months before I could determine the colonies temperament. I am not sure what it is like in other parts of the country, but over the years I have found in general that swarms are becoming nastier.  So it is much quicker and easier to just replace the Queen with one of my own, with known qualities.

1 May
Late yesterday, around 8 pm I had a swarm call from a local contractor.  He has a huge old cedar tree in his garden that over the years has developed a lot of hollowed out areas. all of them have colonies in.  I think I collected three or four swarms there last year.

Again not a great photo, nearly dark by the time I arrived.  I shook them down into a hive and left them overnight.  I went back this morning they were all tucked up inside the hive, don't blame them, its a miserable day.

Off we go again

And so another beekeeping season begins, already a complete contrast to last year, which was an extremely cold and very long Winter.  The oil seed rape, which is my main crop only started flowering in June, when it should flower from early May onwards.  This year the oil seed rape has just started flowering, a good month early.  I will take some photos of the fields that surround my apiaries over the next few days and post them on here.


A good early order book this year and the first batch of nuc boxes are ready for their colonies.  All my colonies are going very well already, and some have capped drone cells, so I would guess that there will be drones about in a week to ten days.  As long as the weather holds we will be able to start Queen production very early this year