Busy, busy, busy

They say, 'as busy as a bee', but I think it should be, as busy as a beekeeper.  This last month has been pretty much non-stop on the beekeeping front. Extracting all the oil seed rape before it sets on the frames and just about wrecks them, making sure non of my colonies swarms, which raised an interesting incident a few days ago.
I am breeding from three colonies this year.  They are all sisters from my best Queen the year before, calm, good layers , hard working.  All were showing the early signs of wanting to swarm.  I don't wait, I artificially swarm (A/S), which I did with all three.  So I now have six colonies, three with the original queens and all their flying bees, but broodless, sited in their original location.  And three with all the brood a single remaining queen cell and all the house bees, still located in the apiary.  Four days later as I was preparing to go through the hives at this apiary, when what looked like an incoming swarm appeared in the sky and landed at the top of an apple tree, I quickly raised a ladder and recovered the 'swarm' into an empty hive and then proceeded to go through the six A/S colonies.  On opening the second of the hives that should have contained a Queen and all the flying bees from one of the A/S I found the hive almost empty, most of the brood frames contained some honey but no brood.  The 'swarm' up the apple tree was in fact my colony that had vacated a hive after being there for four days.  I swear they will drive me off the edge one day.

The oils seed rape is all over now apart from the wild stuff in the hedgerows, so I was surprised to see a lot of bees in one of my apiaries stained yellow, until I saw this just a half mile from the apiary.

I am standing on a slightly raised piece of ground taking these photographs, it looks just like osr, but is in fact mustard and there is about 50 acres of it.  Its the first time I have seen it grown anywhere near me and had to look the leaf shape up on the internet to be sure.  The bees are obviously all over it judging by their colour, which makes them look very wasp like.

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

Overdue oxalic

Its the 31st January 2014, about 5C, there is a stiff South Westerly, its trying to rain.  Sounds like every day we have had this 'Winter'.  We have still not had a serious cold spell and the long range forecasts don't predict one.  Fairly soon if this keeps up the wild willows will flower and then the bees will start production in earnest.

So, push has come to shove.  The bees will have to be treated for varroa control with oxalic acid whether we have ideal conditions or not.  I will be treating my bees on the next cold day that comes along.  There is bound to be some brood present in all my colonies, but hitting varroa after this mild Winter is essential.

Fondant

The first week of December is when I put fondant on all my hives, some take to it more readily than others, but usually a colony will make their way through half a kilo in a week or so.  In normal Winters by now we are knee deep in hard frosts and near freezing daytime temperatures, with howling North Easterly winds that cut across our flat fenlands like a knife.
I say usually because this 'Winter' is not very usual.  Its January 5th today and we had a bairly visible frost first thing this morning, I think we had another a couple of weeks ago.  Yesterday, 4th January there were bees flying in large numbers from most of my hives.

hive E

Back to the title, fondant.  As I said usually a colony will take about half a kilo a week.  The pictures are of two colonies, E and I.  They are the only two that have taken any noticeable amount from the first half kilo in the five weeks its been on top of the crownboard.  I have looked down through the crownboard feed holes and all of the other colonies appear to be ok.  Does this mean that the unusually mild Winter is allowing the bees to access their own stores or that the colonies are in trouble.

hive I

Very soon push is going to get to shove and the oxalic acid treatment will have to done.  The ideal is two-three weeks of freezing temperatures, thats not on our forecast any time soon.  Whats that saying, if it was easy...................