The first honey

What a strange year its been already, and it is still only June.  A really long dragged out Winter, coldest Spring on record and yet here we are mid June taking honey, five supers to be exact.  All capped, and almost certainly oil seed rape.  In fact in this part of the country, South Lincolnshire, I don't think I have ever had more than a few kilos of clear honey.  The oil seed rape has been in flower now since mid/late May and there are still fields in full flower that look as if they have a couple of weeks left in them.  The wild oil seed rape is in flower in the hedgerows and along the dyke banks and roadside verges, and will continue to flower throughout the summer, right up until the ivy flowers.  So if our honey is not pure oil seed rape, there is nearly always enough of it in the supers to set any other nectar the bees might be collecting.

Fathers day

It was a really nice morning, I was thinking about the relaxing day laid before me, perhaps a couple of hours fishing on the river bank, a full on Sunday lunch.  And then late morning a phone call, that might be someone wishing me happy fathers day, I thought.  But no, it was just what I had always wanted..... bees.  Obviously no respect for a fellas day off, as usual the girls throw a spanner in the works.

However it was a nice swarm.

Colony 'A'

The reason this colony is known as 'A', is not because it is my best colony.  It is my best colony, but that is not the reason, it is because it has been around for so long.  The Queen is very old, a 'blue', and yet the colony came through the winter on eight frames of brood and quickly rose to eleven, the same as last year.  It also collects more honey than any other colony, it currently has four supers on, three of which are full and partly capped, and this despite providing frames of brood to make up nucs and help other colonies grow.  It is also the colony that I have taken the larvae from to start breeding from, the first Queens hatched on June 8th.  I'll know in a couple of weeks if they successfully mated.

As you can see from the photo above, it is heaving with bees and there are four supers full of bees as well.  They also happen to be the mildest of bees, a lovely temperament.  If only all colonies were like this one, sadly not.  Some of the swarms I have collected over the last week or so are the nastiest things imaginable, the sooner my new Queens are able to take over a colony the better.

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.