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.