Nucs for the 2013 season

And so production begins for the 2013 season.

I have cut the timber for the first batch of nucleus hives into flat pack ready for glueing and pining.  I usually build nucs and hives in batches of four, it is a monotonous job, I find four is enough to keep me interested, any more and it becomes a bit of a chore.

Once the nucs are glued and pined all that remains to be done is to tar the roofs and melt the felt into it for a weather-tight lid, and paint with five coats of exterior wood preservative, and of course the endless job of building frames.

This first batch of nucs, each with a colony installed, are for orders already taken.  Even now it looks as if 2013 will be sold out very early.

Taster days, courses and colonies

Another year about over, and for beekeepers what a dreadful year its been, the worst I can remember.  But already I have to make plans for the coming season.

I don't start advertising colonies for sale until late January early February, I have a better idea of how my bees have come through the winter by then, but I have orders for hives and nucs with colonies already.  And the course that I run for absolute beginners is also becoming booked up early. The beginning of the season used to be the start of April for me, I had a couple of colonies that were hugely productive, varroa was in the distant future, summers were always sunny, winters were mild...... Must stop wearing those rose tinted glasses.

My early nuc and colony queens were ordered two months ago and most of those have already been sold with the colonies they will head. I start building hives and nucs the first week of January and I don't really stop building frames.  I am going to severely restrict the number of colonies I produce this coming year, I have, unfortunately, a lot of non-beekeeping work to get through in 2013.

This year I am going to be offering people who like the idea of beekeeping but who have never had the chance to see what is involved, 'Taster Days', these are an opportunity to inspect a hive or two with me to see if beekeeping is something they would like to take up. I will be providing all the kit they will need, so the outlay is minimal and greatly reduces the risk of starting something that they may not actually like.

For those wishing to read up on beekeeping through the winter in preparation to start keeping bees in the spring, two books that I use and recommend,
Practical Beekeeping by Ted Hooper and A Guide to Bees and Honey by Clive de Bruyn.  Both appear from time to time on auction sites,  as with all hobbies/pastimes its much easier to understand when you have had hands on experience.

Winter preparation

The first frosts have arrived as usual in the first week of November, its the time that I rearrange the hives in readiness for winter.
All supers and queen excluders are removed from the top of the brood box and a full super is given back to each hive, but placed under the brood, the fifth of November was a lovely day, just right for such an operation.

As soon as they are rearranged, I put fondant on every hive.  I make the fondant in half kilo tubs, this is placed upside down over a feed hole on top of the crown board.  this allows me to monitor the bees through the winter without going into the hive.




It doesn't take long for the bees to find and start using this food source.  Some of my colonies get through large amounts of fondant, others barely touch it, but it is always there if they need it.

Replacing a queen

JZ/BZ (open) & push in cage

I have been asked to do a post on how I would replace a queen, known as requeening, more specifically how I would replace a queen in an aggressive colony.  In truth, this is is the method I use no matter whether the colony is aggressive or not.

To carry out a requeening I use two queen cages, a small travelling cage which I think is a JZ/BZ and a larger press in cage.
If I purchase a queen from a supplier then she will arrive through the post in a JZ/BZ or something similar and the escape tunnel will be sealed with candy or soft wax.  If I am using one of my own queens she will have to be encouraged into a JZ/BZ, not always the easiest of tasks, but once she is in the cage I seal it with a plastic plug, she will only be in there for the journey to her new home.

Queens as they arrive in the post

JZ/BZ sealed with plastic plug 

Queen sealed in with wax

One way or another you now have a queen in a travelling cage, I keep her in my suit pocket until I am ready, it keeps her in the dark and warm, less stress.

In the colony you are to requeen you have to find the existing queen, you then have to decide whether to kill her or keep her with a frame of bees in a nuc as an insurance policy, even a nasty queen is better than no queen.  Either way she must be removed from the colony

Now you have to look for a suitable brood frame for the press in queen cage, the comb has to be flat, there must be no way that the colonies workers can easily crawl under the edges, if the workers manage to get in before they should you will have a dead queen.  It should have a section of honey at the top and emerging brood just under, that is brood that will hatch over the next week.

Shake all the bees off the frame and take it somewhere where you can work on a flat surface, push the queen cage firmly into the comb, top centre, until the edges are in full contact all the way round.  I also use two elastic bands to make sure it cannot move.

Remove the entrance plug from the press in queen cage, take the queen from your pocket, remove the plastic plug and quickly put the escape  hatch on the JZ/BZ into the entrance of the press in queen cage, keeping it raised just enough so there is room for the queen to crawl out and onto the comb.

 Replace the entrance plug on the press in queen cage and take the frame back to its colony.
I usually leave them for a week, sometimes longer before I inspect. If the queen is still in the cage after ten days, brood should have hatched in the cage and she will be their queen and it will be safe to let her go.
I requeen every swarm I collect, so I have done this more than a few times.
This is the only system that has worked every time for me.

A beautiful day

Its Sunday October 7th, here in South Lincs its a beautiful day, the sun is shining, the wind is almost non existent and the bees seem to think its summer.  On this apiary the bees have a couple of acres of this small yellow dandelion like flower to go at, I think its Hawkweed, and I can't remember ever seeing the field looking like this so late in the year and a real bonus for the bees, because whatever it is they are all over it.