Apiary Visit 28/04/2012 - Feeding The Bees

Anyone who lives in the north of England will be well aware of the lovely weather we have been having over the last few weeks, in fact we have had little more than a few hours of dry weather since the last time I went to the Bees and split the hive. Due to this bad weather I have been increasingly worried for the Bees, especially the hive that I know is queenless. For a few days I have been trying to get to the Bees but kept putting it off due to the rain but then I received a email from the National Bee Unit advising us (the Beekeeper) to feed our Bees as starvation is a real issue at the moment. I decided that opening the hive for a short time and risking a little water getting in was better than letting them starve.

Friday just gone would have been a perfect day for feeding the Bees as it was much better weather and the sun even revealed herself for a short time, unfortunately I had already made plans for the day and wasn't at home. By the time I did get home it had started raining again anyway. The following day, yesterday, was again slightly better so I prepared some syrup and took a spare frame feeder up with me to the apiary. I had to stop off at my Dad's on the way as he has the keys to the allotment gate, it was about this point it started raining again.

When I got to the allotment the first thing I did was to have a look at the apiary and I was surprised to see a Bee flying back into one of my hives; it was only lightly raining and as it wasn't raining a short time before she could have been returning from a foraging trip. The first hive I fed was the new hive that has Queen Bee-atrix in. It was fairly simple to do this hive as it has no supers on yet so less equipment to move. I removed the hive roof and slid the crownboard slightly back to reveal the feeder frame only. The sugar syrup was then poured into the frame filling it to the top. I didn't fully open the hive but from the small amount I opened it I could see there was a lot of activity. I will do a full inspection as soon as the weather allows.

The next hive was slightly different. As it already had two supers on it I had to remove these first; I did have a quick look in the supers first and found that they did still have some stores but not much. This time of year with better weather they should be full of oil seed honey but unfortunately it was not to be. Once I had taken the supers off and placed them to one side I removed the Queen excluder (not sure why that is still in as this hive is Queenless!) to allow me access to the brood chamber, which was full of Bees! The first thing I needed to do was remove a frame so I could put the frame feeder in. Last time I was in the hive I moved a frame of brood further out to the edge of the box, this was a mistake and I will not do it again. With the weather being wet and cold the Bees may have formed a ball to stay warmer and by doing this they have left the frame that was at the edge and due to this it has got colder and all the brood has died. I have taken this frame out and taken photos of it which I will put at the end of this post. With the space created by removing this frame I placed the other frame feeder in it's place and filled it with the remaining syrup. Now for the good news......

......The rain was even lighter now so I decided to have a quick look at a frame, unfortunately I was unable to take any pictures of what I saw which is a shame as it was the best sight I could have hoped for, a Queen cell fully formed and capped; this means the Bees have realized they have no Queen and raised a new one from eggs that where already in the hive, they do this by feeding a freshly hatched larva royal jelly only. Now with any luck there will be some decent weather once she has hatched so she can go and do her mating flight, fingers crossed! After seeing the Queen cell I closed the hive up. There probably will be more that one Queen cell in there but I didn't want to disturb them too much.

The frame of dead brood. 

I removed some of the cappings to see what state the larva was in. 

The larger cells have drone brood in them

This shows pollen present in the frame

A Queen cup on the side of the frame, if an egg had been placed in this the Bees could have created a Queen cell from it

By placing a match into a cell you can test for American Foul Brood; if it was present it would "rope" from the match, I can only describe this as a snot like substance stuck to the match, luckily it looks like I don't have AFB

The lines of empty cells are actually where the wire runs through the foundation to give it extra strength, the Queen has detected this and chosen not to lay in there. I have read somewhere that this is actually a good trait for a Queen.

A dead Bee not fully developed, if it had died of European Foul Brood you would be able to see it's gut through the skin and it would be bright white or creamy. It looks like I don't have EFB either thankfully.

Another Queen cup

I have learned a lesson with this and in the future will not move frames out of the cluster in the brood chamber. I have had a good look at the frame and I am fairly happy the brood died of being chilled at the edge of the brood box, rather than any kind of disease. I will do full inspections soon, if the weather picks up, and hopefully will get photos of the new Queen. I will also attempt to mark her to make her easy to spot! 

Wakefield and Pontefract Beekeepers: February Meeting

Monday just gone was the February meeting for my local Beekeeping association. This month the talk was held by a guy from the NBU or the National Bee Unit. The main purpose of the talk was to give the results of some research that has been going on recently. He covered how they conduct their research, which was done over 2 years in random apiaries. There were plenty of pie charts and diagrams to show the different levels of disease that where found within the apiaries. I won't include any of the figures, this is mainly due to not having access to them! The general idea I got was that EFB and AFB aren't at high levels, but other diseases are higher. One of the higher level diseases was DWV (deformed wing virus) and there was a further graph to show how levels of this problem relate directly to varroa levels. All in all the presentation gave me confidence that no matter how many problems the Bees face there is still a lot of research going on to try to combat them.

Within the presentation a lot of emphasis was on encouraging people to register on Beebase Website. I have already done this some time ago and can confirm that it is a very good resource for UK Beekeepers to use. Within the site there is a section for putting details about each hive inspection and can also easily be set up for various different apiaries. There is also a lot of information about the various problems Bees suffer from and what to do. There are lots of .pdf documents to download and print out to hand out to people to provide further info. All in all it's well worth registering if your either a Beekeeper or interested in becoming one.

After the presentation I went to see the secretary as some goodies that I had ordered as part of my associations bulk buy scheme had arrived:-

Apiguard. This is a treatment for varroa mites. There is enough for 5 hives in this box. I'll describe how it's used closer the time that I use. I think it's very similar to the other treatment I used last year, APILIFE VAR, but in an easier to use package!

Another varroa treatment. It's the same as the stuff I used in the winter time except already made into a liquid.

Hessian sacking. This is just a bundle of hessian. It's useful in the smoker and really helps get your smoking working properly.

There are more items that I ordered but they will be there next month. I think all I have left to arrive are some more packs of wax foundation.

Beekeeping Course: Week 7

This weeks course was a special one for me as it was the first I had attended as a genuine Beekeeper! Upon arrival we all got talking, mainly about how everyone's Bees were settling in. Mine seem to be doing fine but a couple who attend together who got their Bees the same day as me seem to be very lucky; their Bees have almost drawn out all the foundation into full comb. I imagine mine will catch up without too much problem.

As several people were picking up their Bees and there was a lot to cover we went straight up to the apiary. This weeks course was all about Bee diseases and being able to identify them. As a lot of Bee diseases are first noticeable in the brood as a Beekeeper you need to be able to remove Bees from a frame so you can see into the cells. We split into 3 groups and was shown how to shake the Bees off a comb. Once Ivor had done a frame the hive tool was passed round so everyone had a turn. When it came to my turn I gently removed a frame and had a quick look for the Queen. While I was looking for her I noticed a Queen cup with a white residue on it; I asked Ivor what it was and while he was looking at it a large caterpillar fell of onto the hive below, Ivor quickly caught it and disposed of it. It turned out to be a greater wax moth larva! It was now time to shake the Bees; to do this you hold the frame at either side and then shake with a couple of quick sharp thrusts downwards, which should dislodge enough Bees to be able to see the brood underneath. This should be done to all brood frames at least a couple of times a year if you want to catch diseases before they become a problem. After everybody had shaken a frame we moved straight onto putting the nucleus hives into everyone's hives and then left them to collect at the end.

After a quick break we went straight onto the classroom session which this week was about Bee disease and pests. We were shown several slides with various different problems present. Things we were told to look out for were:-

• Uneven brood colour; a frame of capped brood should all have a very similar colour, newer comb will be lighter than old comb.
• Smells; strong or sour odours can be signs of foulbrood
• Uneven brood pattern; a failing Queen can cause cells to be regularly missed
• Larva in cells looking different; they should be ivory white and curled in a "C" shape, if they are a different colour or seem twisted in the cell that could be foulbrood
• Capped cells look sunken; capped brood should be lightly raised, again could be foulbrood

If any of the above are found in the hive then there could be a problem and if in doubt get someone else to look at it. If you suspect foulbrood, either American or European, then by law you need to notify DEFRA; we were all encouraged to register at Beebase and through there you can notify any problems you have. We also mentioned Varroa and Small Hive Beetle. I won't go into much detail on the diseases and pests as they will be eventually added to the separate page I've created .

I also bought a new suit for my better half so she can get a little more involved. She has decided that Bees aren't as bad as she thought but still prefers her chickens, which she blogs about here.

Steph in her Bee suit

Still Waiting

As the title suggests, I am still waiting to get my Bees. The course that I will be attending is getting ever nearer and there will be a chance to purchase Bees there. I am strongly considering buying some elsewhere as this will guarantee I get them this year as the course describes having very limited numbers of nucs available. Due to the amount of time I've been researching and preparing I would be so gutted if I didn't get going this year.

There is still much preparation needed in my Dad's allotment; the allotment committee require a 6' fence erecting around the apiary, however this will only require a days work as my Dad has already got the fence, it just needs putting in place. We plan on planting Bee friendly flowers around the apiary site to brighten it up a bit and make the Bees feel more at home.

Over the last few days I have received a couple of emails; one from Wakefield Beekeepers Association and another from DEFRA advising of European Foul Brood (or EFB) been found in a hive within 5km of me. Though this is bad news, I am glad that they have contacted me, although it won't affect me just yet (again back to the lack of Bees). I plan on adding EFB to my pests and diseases section but for the mean time I will say that it's a disease that Bees can get that effects the brood, potentially causing massive damage to the colony. There is another similar disease that is more nasty called American Foul Brood (or AFB) and I will also put this on my pests and diseases page. The American equivalent is more severe but not as common in the UK as far as I'm aware.

Recently I acquired a few more pieces of equipment from someone my sister knows who has unfortunately had to stop Beekeeping due to an allergy. The equipment I have received is mostly unused, such as frames and supers. I also got some packs of unopened wax foundation but as these had been in the garage a while had turned brittle and unusable in a hive. Not wanting to waste this wax I decided to melt it down; I used a large tall tuperware in a pan of hot water and added the foundation into the tuperware until all the wax was melted. I then let it cool and set so I can use it at a later date. There is more equipment they have available for me to purchase but I will have to wait to payday to afford any more.

My second batch of mead is going to be bottled in the next couple of days. In one of the demijohns I have added something to stop fermentation then added more honey to make it sweeter. As mentioned in one of my previous posts, my second batch didn't turn out as planned, being that I added far too little honey. This is why I'm experimenting a little with this one by adding extra honey after fermentation. As I have 4 demijohns with this batch I will probably experiment further with it by adding fruit juice to two of the other demijohns and leaving one with no additives.

Going back to my very first batch of mead, (the JAO mead) I have all but finished this off now. I tried, in vain, to store some to age, but as it was "hidden" in plain sight ended up getting opened and is now almost finished. This first batch was very sucessful and everyone who tried it agrees. There is another batch of this recipe brewing at the moment, but with slight difference being that I added a little lemon juice. Hopefully this won't change it too much. I think next time I do a large batch I will stick to the tried and tested JAO mead.

Bee Pests and Diseases

I have decided to do a page dedicated to Bee nasties. There are a variety of different problems that honey bees have to put up with at the moment. So far I have only written about varroa and nosema but will add more as I find time. I will probably also update the details about varroa as I learn more and if I'm unlucky enough to get varroa in my hives I will try to get pictures. In the future I will write about European Foul Brood (EFB) and American Foul Brood (AFB), Small Hive Beetle (SHB), Wax Moth, Chalk Brood and Stone Brood. I will also include other problems that I read about. To get to the page either follow this link or look on the right side under Pages.