First swarm of 2013

Later than last year, and much later than usual, on Monday 27th May our first swarm call of 2013.  It was from a 'regular', a house in Spalding once owned by a beekeeper, now by his daughter.  It has a colony in each of its chimneys and over the years has swarmed and occupied most of the neighbors chimneys and soffits.  I pick up two or three swarms a season from their gardens,  this one on a low branch of an azalea bush.  I just put a hive on the ground, pushed it towards the swarm, and within ten minutes they had all run inside.  I wish it was always that quick and simple.  Usually I am at the top of a ladder, balancing on one foot, at full stretch reaching for the branch with a swarm on just beyond the tips of my fingers.

As the weather has turned for the worse again, I have not been able to have a good look at them yet, but they are coming and going, so at least they have decided to stay.

The first of my Queens are in production now and one of them should be ready to take over this colony as soon as she is mated and laying.

What a week

Been a bit of an up and down week, mostly down, but that leaves a lot of upside.

Had a call from a friends wife, he had been taken to hospital and was worrying about his six colonies.  I had to wait for a decent day, but managed to go through them last weekend. One dead, starvation by the looks of it, two drone layers and three very small colonies. This was their first inspection of the year, so I put them into summer mode for him and left his wife with the notes.

The following Monday/Tuesday a batch of Queens was due to turn up, but didn't, nor Wednesday or any other day.  This was my first order with this supplier and on contacting him to find out what was happening was told,   'Take it up with your local postman or post office distribution depot.'   I have generally found the beekeeping community to be really nice people.  Lesson learned.  As a pensioner, the total loss of a batch of Queens is a big hit for me.  Luckily they were to improve my own stock and were not intended for any of my customers.

Then this weekend, only just warm enough for an inspection, seven days after the last one, Swarm cells in my strongest hive, one of them an enormous thing, already capped.  The Queen was still there though, I would guess just waiting for the weather to improve.  It took me by surprise, and I closed up quickly while I had a think about what to do next.  Although there are capped drone cells in most of my colonies I have not yet seen a drone.  Bees do some maddening things at times.  I was going to breed from this colony this year.  It was my strongest colony last year and produced more honey than any of my others.  I didn't want to waste any early opportunity so in the end I decided it was worth the risk to remove the largest Queen cell along with a few bees and put them in a mini nuc.  All the other Queen cells I broke down and will revisit this colony in a couple of days.  Hopefully with a couple of new frames to work they will settle down.

You spend all Winter worrying about your bees and longing for Spring, and then all hell breaks loose.

Just a quick look

The weather has been so bad and is forecast to be the same for at least the next few days, in this knowledge I decided to take  a quick peek into a couple of hives.  It wasn't warm enough and it was too windy, but I was getting increasingly concerned at what I might eventually find, so I caved in, put on my suit and chose two hives at random

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There has been so little flying that it was not possible to know what I was likely to find, but to my absolute surprise both hives are heaving with bees, brood and stores.  I have no idea where or when they collected it all, but I have had to remove a couple of frames of stores to give the queens some laying room.

If all my colonies are in this condition I will consider myself extremely lucky, And with the early queens arriving over the next few weeks I just need a couple of reasonable days so that I can introduce them into my nucs.

What a difference a year makes

Two photos taken a year apart of the same damson tree.  The one on the left was taken on 26 March 2012, and the one on the right today, 4 April 2013.  On the face of it similar days, sunny, blue skies.  But on that day late March 2012 it was a warm 17C, and calm.  Today it is hovering just above freezing with a howling north easterly.

I am sure that all my colonies are going to come through this dreadful weather, but what concerns me is the size of those colonies, its a worry.  Until I am able to inspect the hives its impossible to gauge the strength of the colonies, some may need moving down to a nucleus box to make it easier for them to maintain temperature.  Promised good weather for next week, fingers crossed.

4 April 2013

26 March 2012

So, this is Spring

I can't remember or imagine a worse Spring for the bees.  Looking at the forecast for the weeks ahead there appears to be no end to this slow motion train wreck that is our weather.  I have willow, (which is usually the first main crop of the year for my bees), surrounding my apiaries, sort of in flower, but it is way too nasty out there for the bees to be able to get to it.  In past years I have had bees in huge numbers taking willow in late January.

Judging by the numbers of phone calls and e-mails I am receiving it looks as if there is going to be larger than usual Winter colony losses this year.  I ordered my early queens in November 2012 for delivery in April 2013, so as usual I have limited numbers.  I doubt if I will have English bred queens this year until mid-late May,  so I have stopped taking orders for my early colonies and nucs, just for the time being in case any of the people I mentor have last minute losses and require replacements.

The next weeks are critical.  This is always the most dangerous time for a colonies.  As they comes out of their winter dormancy period and start the Spring build up. Most of the workers are very old now and there are a lot less of them than there should be in a hive right now.  As always all my colonies have had fondant available from November onwards, and they are still taking it in large quantities, but there are limits to what any colony of bees can handle, no matter how well looked after they are.

It must be a horrible feeling to lose a colony to starvation, not something I want to experience.