Weather, swarms and pesticides

 First off, the weather. I know you can’t rely on England having a great Summer, but for goodness sake its been dreadful. With almost continual easterly winds, overcast miserable skies and lower temperatures than  should be expected at this time of year its been a tough time for the bees.

Having never lost any colonies to pesticides or any other kind of poison I have mixed feelings about the ban on neonicotinoids. While reducing chemicals used anywhere near our food supply has to be a good thing the ban has meant that on the fens there is virtually no oil seed rape being grown this year. Oil seed rape usually makes up over 50% of my honey crop. None of my hives are sitting on osr fields and only one of my farmers intends to sow it next year. So I expect my honey take this year to be severely reduced.

Despite all of the above the swarms still keep coming, so they are managing to build numbers in their colonies no matter what is thrown at them. Its now about six weeks since I picked up the first swarm this year, thats when I expect the second run of swarms and this week has been hectic. I no longer have the kit or the time to maintain any more colonies, so any future swarms will be united with smaller hives.

Swarms, swarms and more swarms

 I have no idea where all the swarms have been coming from over the last few weeks, but it’s been fairly full on. The latest on arrived in one of my apiaries. I had just extracted three supers and had them stored on a spare stand. Somehow they managed to squeeze through a tiny gap and made their way into the supers.

I think the gap they found was too small for the queen, that’s why some of the swarm stayed outside. The bulk of the swarm were inside.

Again a really easy swarm to deal with, just gave them access to a hive and left them to it. They had started to build comb, so they had been there for a day or so. All done and dusted in ten minutes.

I went through the colony today, that’s two days after rehousing. Definitely a queen in there somewhere as there are loads of eggs. A really calm colony unusually, perhaps they are going to be the exception to the usual nightmare swarms I collect. A lot of nectar brought in considering how new they are, so much that I have given them a super to free up space in the brood.

Another day. Another swarm.

 A call from a local farmer took me a few miles out on the fen to this swarm.

It is as you can see a sizeable swarm, certainly the largest I have collected this year, and again in an ideal location. I have left them to make their own way into the hive and will return later this evening around dusk. As usual they will be moved to isolation so I can assess for mood and over the next few weeks any disease problems. All being well they will be moved to one of my working sites until I can raise some new queens for all this year’s swarms.

Swarm update

 Just a quick update on the swarm that arrived last week, in the meantime two bees in birdboxes (bumblebees), three swarms in chimneys (really annoying) and last night at 9.30pm a call to a swarm only a mile from me. It was on the end of a conifer branch just 600mm off the ground, left the hive in place overnight and will collect them late this evening. Easy swarms like this happen once in a blue moon. Usually I’m up a tree balancing a box on one shoulder while shaking the swarm in with the hand and hanging on for dear life with my third hand.

Anyway back to last weeks swarm, as expected with just about every swarm around here it’s horrific, a large number of very angry bees stayed with me for over 100 metres after I checked the colony over. However there is a queen and she is laying, I will requeen as soon as I have one available.

Another Season Begins

What a start to the season, here we are late May and the weather is dreadful. It’s probably just as well that I have drastically reduced the number of hives that I have. Late last year I sold off a lot of my colonies and merged some of the rest. I have been cleaning and restoring all the hardware over Winter, so a lot of kit is going on ebay through the summer months.

Yesterday, Friday the 21st at 2pm in a howling gale and pouring rain, this arrived in one of my bait hives. This one is on top of an old shed about 2 metres up, a nice flying height for bees. They are definitely not mine as I have no colonies within 5 miles of this location and because of the weather I have not been able to take a look yet. Its possible the Queen didn’t make it in the high winds. I’m not really wanting any swarms this year, but I would rather catch them in bait hives than be called out to a swarm 5 metres up a tree, or worse, that a pest controller had been called to kill them.

I’m amazed that there any swarms at all as its been so cold and very few of the farmers in my area are growing oil seed rape this year, they tell me its due to the pesticide ban. Oil seed rape always seemed to be the main driver of early swarms. 

Yet more swarms

A week after the swarm arrived and took up residence in a nuc (now moved into full hive), and another swarm turned up two or three metres away in the leylandii  (this has also been moved into a full hive, during that process I spotted the queen, my guess newly hatched.  They had been in the nuc for a couple of days and no eggs had been laid, so it will be a few weeks before I find out if she has been successfully mated).  Its likely that both these colonies came from the same hive, the first being the main swarm with the old queen the second a newly hatched princess.  Both these colonies have been moved to a new apiary.

 I had just finished preparing these two colonies to be moved when one of the people who live close to the apiary walked in and announced that a swarm had arrived in his garden. As he had once kept bees as boy at school I knew it was highly likely to be a true swarm and not bumblebees or wasps or any of the other insects I take calls for.

A five minute walk later and there it is, a small swarm in a young pear tree.  My guess is that is yet another newly hatched princess from the same hive as the last two swarms.  Dropped them straight into a nuc where they will spend the next few days.  If it is another new princess I will combine them with the last one, loads of small new queens is a waste of time, getting them up to a full colony asap is the priority. I'm not aware of any other beekeepers in the location but there must be one, and losing a lot of bees.  Not going to be much left of at least one of their hives.

While all this is going on honey is still coming in at a rate.  There is an enormous amount of blackberries growing wild in the hedgerows at the moment and the honey being extracted is very light and floral.

Swarms, queens and eggs

For the last couple of weeks the weather had definitely take a turn for the worse, but a week ago push came to shove and I had to do an inspection.  When I turned up at this apiary a swarm had taken residence since my last visit.

But not in a nice hive left there for artificial swarming, oh no, lets all cram into a totally empty nuc, and build a load of wild comb.  Nothing much I could do at the time except dump them all in the hive.  OK one week later and a nice weekend, so in I go, a bit apprehensive that the swarm might be one of my own colonies, always a possibility however unlikely. Started with the single super colony on the far left, saw the queen loads of eggs, good colony.  Next the colony far right with three supers, saw the queen loads of eggs good colony.  Now the newly established swarm,

This is the wild comb they had built on the crownboard of the nuc, covered in capped brood.  However imagine my surprise when going through the colony I came across this,

a green marked queen, 2019 if the marking is correct.  I don't mark my queens, so this strong colony is not out of my hives. 

Now there are quite a few novice beekeepers who have difficulty seeing eggs or really know what they are supposed to be looking for.  I know its not easy until you get used to it, so this is what you are looking for.

All through this inspection the bees were much more active than usual with huge numbers in the air.  Not thinking much more of it I closed up cleared away and prepared to leave.  Just above head height on a leylandii branch another swarm had rocked up.

Now I'm fairly good at handing out advice but taking my own, not so much.  No spare hive with me, so for now they are in the on site nuc.  Its a big swarm so whether they stay or not is even more uncertain than usual.
Both the swarms will be moved to a new site this week.

Mid May 2020

Its the 17th May and been a really nice day.  A good day to go through a few hives. The oil seed rape is nearly over around here so time to be taking a good look in the supers. Oil seed rape sets remarkably quickly and by set I mean fondant hard set.

This is a small apiary of mine, only two colonies here at the moment, both very busy.  One has three supers and the other just one.  Two colonies in the same location, starting at about the same strength at the beginning of the season and yet one has three nearly full supers and the other barely started on its first.
The third hive you can see is empty and will be used for artificial swarming if either colony starts to produce queen cells, I keep an empty hive in every apiary for this reason.  I use nucs to collect swarms, so there is always at least one available wherever I am, just in case.

First swarms

Its early May, the oil seed rape is in full flower and so obviously its swarm time.  Had a call yesterday from my neighbour who has a building firm to let me know that a swarm had arrived on one of the sites he is working on.  I turned up at the site early this morning. Only the site supervisors and a couple of scaffolders were working when I arrived so social distancing was easy.

As you can see the bees had decided that a pile of site tressles was the ideal place to relocate.  There was already signs of comb being formed.  Its a lovely day today, warm and sunny, so just as well I arrived early before they started to liven up and start foraging.  I gradually moved the tressles apart one at a time placing the tressle on top of my collection nuc.  The bees moved down on to the comb one tressle at a time, in the end only leaving a few flying bees behind, virtually impossible to get them all especially this weather.  They have now been safely moved into a new hive and are flying strongly.  Not sure if the queen is there, but I think it’s likely judging by the way the bees are behaving.

Hives, first look of the year

Last weekend, the 12th April I managed to at least open all my hives, only really had time to make sure a queen is present force her back down into the brood box and return the excluder. Glad to say all queens present and with capped worker brood in all colonies everything seems to be in a good starting place for the beginning of the season.
I am constantly baffled as to how two colonies, side by side, almost identical going into the Winter can be so different in the Spring. In a two of my apiaries one of the colonies is already on nine frames of brood, the other on just three. The OSR has just started to flower so colonies need to be at their strongest to take advantage of it and three frames of brood just doesn’t cut it. As soon as drones appear (no drone brood yet), I will breed some queens as replacements for the weakest colonies, as usual, no panic this year as I have decided not to produce queens for sale, and I will not be taking on any teaching this year either. That was a decision I made at the end of last season and considering what’s happening in the world right now seems fortuitous.

Late March 2020

Its now late March and has been a bright sunny week, but we have a howling North Easterly and its freezing cold.  The bees are out and about for a couple of hours around midday as the plums and damsons are in full flower.
Due to the corvid 19 lockdown it will not be possible for me to help out at any of my trainees apiaries for the whole of the summer the way things are going, but I will still be doing the rounds of my own, they are mostly remote and its highly unlikely that I will meet anyone.  Beekeeping is my occupation and hardly something you can do while sitting at a computer and bees are not creatures you can just leave to get on with it.  Feeding all the colonies at the moment as I have always felt that this is the most dangerous time of the year, low numbers in the hives, low food stores and cold weather are a bad combination.

2020 Beekeeping

             Not the traditional start to my season nor the usual time, it will be another month at least before I would normally consider opening my hives for the first time.  But this week I have had two calls to remove bee colonies, the first from a garden shed, the bees had been there from last summer but unfortunately the shed had been crushed by a tree that had blown over during one of our recent storms. It was out of my area but was able to put them in touch with a nearby beekeeper, so hopefully that all worked out.

The second call, just yesterday, was to a colony that had taken residence in a little owl nest box last summer.  Its the second time I have removed colonies from this box, the last was five years ago.  On both occasions there were fertile little owl eggs in the nest.  Not much a pair of owls can do if bees decide to take over their nest site.

With the front of the box removed you can see the amount of comb and bees.  The box is about a  300mm cube.  There is capped honey and larvae, and eggs.  Cutouts are not my favorite job with bees, its extremely messy and usually causes lots of damage to the colony.  All of the comb in use was moved into a nuc, Some of the comb was empty so that will be melted down.  I strapped the nuc down to a tall pair of steps and left them for a few hours. On returning all but a small number of bees had moved into the nuc which I closed up and moved to one of my apiaries.

The owl box was cleaned up  and the front replaced, hopefully the owls will  return and raise a family.

Just a quick update on the owl box colony from yesterday, this is them today, very active despite its only 10C.  They will move into the hive they are sitting on once the weather improves and they have increased their numbers.

2019 and swarms

I have not been well for a while and have had to let the blog slide. I have also reduced the number of colonies I maintain and the number of new beekeepers I help. But as I am back on the mend it is time for me to pick up where I left off. 2019 now and a late start for the bees. these mild damp overlong winters are of little use to a bee colony, keeping them active with little in the way of forage.However as usual all mine made it through even if a few were  little on the small side. with reasonable weather through the OSR harvest all are up to speed.
Swarms are also late this year, almost without fail my first swarm call would normally be in early May, this year it was very nearly June and typically difficult having buried itself in a leylandii hedge. A couple of scooped handfuls and a hive left nearby overnight encouraged them to move in, sad to say this swarm had lost its Queen along the way but now has a frame of eggs from this years breeding colony. I must remember to take my phone so I can post some pictures.

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...................

Winter reshuffle

The weather has finally turned cooler, and damper.  Time to prepare all the colonies for Winter.

This is how I set my hives up for Winter, I have tried several different methods but this has always been the most successful for me. Colonies are able to stay over their brood without interruption and still access food when needed.

The mouse-guards were put in place a few days ago, we live in a very rural area and have had problems with mice invading the hives in past years.  So although I dislike using them, mouse-guards are essential here.                                                    

As you can see from the top picture there is still a huge amount of pollen coming in, the ivy continues to flower very late into the Autumn this year.

The mouse-guards have been in place for a few days and the bees have settled back into their routine, I try not to change too many things all at once.

I have kept a full super for each colony. Any supers still on top of the hives are removed as are queen excluders.  The brood chamber is lifted clear of the floor and a fully capped super takes its place.  The brood box is now placed on top of the super.  This means that the colony is where it should be, at the top of the hive, where it is warmest.

I will give them a few days to settle again, and then I will give each colony a block of fondant.

Getting ready for Winter?

Well here we are, its the 7th October and the it should be getting colder and the bees should be preparing for the upcoming Winter.  Instead its 20C, sunny and the bees are bringing in so much that I am adding supers.
This has been without doubt the best summer season that I can remember, most colonies and nucs sold, most Queens successfully reared and mated and despite my focus on producing colonies the best honey yield.  As always my colonies will be going into Winter as strong as I can possibly make them, and as I do not lose colonies through the Winter I have always believed that the bigger the colony at the start of Winter the more chance it has of surviving until Spring.

This frame is fairly typical of all my colonies, there are 6 or 7 frames like this in each hive, and as you can see in the background the hive is heaving with bees.There are still drones in each hive, there is still drone brood.
I have not seen that before at this time of year, usually the drones have been driven out by mid September.

As each hive is opened the air is thick with the smell of ivy honey and there are clouds of bees in the air, it looks and feels like May.  I was going to put mouseguards on this weekend, but I think I will postpone that for at least a week.