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.
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Sunday, March 29, 2020
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.
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.
Thursday, March 12, 2020
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
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.
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.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
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.
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.
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