A blog originally for keeping track of my hobby of being a Beekeeper which has evolved to include Home Brewing and even more recently to follow me and my families approach to "The Good Life". Eventually I hope to include baking recipes and stories of our flock of chickens also reporting on the success and failure at the allotments.
Malta is a tiny country in the Mediterranean closest to Sicily. It takes barely an hour to travel from one end of the island to the other (it takes even longer if you keep going the wrong way and having to backtrack). The name Malta is thought to derive from the Greek word μέλι or meli, which means honey and the ancient Greeks called the island Μελίτη, pronounced Melite (info taken from good old Wikipedia). This is believed to be due to Malta having its own endemic species of honey bee and being well known for its honey production.
Me, Steph, Lauren and Steph's Aunt have just come back from a 10 day holiday in Malta and in that time got to see a large amount of the tiny Mediterranean island and it's even smaller island, Gozo. Whilst we were there we had various sites we wanted to visit, including some that were used to film the first series of Game of Thrones! One site I really wanted to see was in a town called Xemxija, near the north of the island. In this town there is an area which has several ancient sites including burial grounds, a Bronze Age village site, Neolithic remains and a Roman apiary site! Not surprising the area I was most interested in was the ancient apiary site. At the end if this post there will be some photos showing the area.
On Sundays there is a major fish market held in a town called Marsaxlokk, to the southeast of the island near to where we were staying. The town is fairly peaceful and quiet during the week but on a Sunday it seems like half the island descends upon this area for the fresh fish that is sold there. By the time we got there the market was well up and running and there were a large variety of fish and shellfish that I recognized and even more that I couldn't. Steph and Lauren weren't too impressed with the smell of the fish although in my opinion it wasn't too bad. Although it is best known as a fish market there was also plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables plus toys, clothes and general tourist tat. There was also a stall selling local honey. I bought a sample of 3 varieties of honey from the lady and also talked to her for a short while. Her husband is the Beekeeper and he has over 100 hives spread over Malta and Gozo. I'm a long way off having the time, patience, equipment and sanity to have that many Bees but maybe when I retire it could be an option. Below are lots of pictures of the Bee related parts of the holiday.
The 3 sample honey's I bought at Marsaxlokk
Inside one of the apiary caves - The bees would have been kept in these upturned jars.
More inside the cave.
The apiary site from outside.
Yet another inside the caves.
A different apiary site in same area.
Below is a small selection of the photos I took of Bees on flowers.
After work today I visited my apiary to check on the Bees and see how my nucleus hive was getting on. Upon arrival at the land I was greeted by my Dad and Brother-in-law working hard at the land. My Brother-in-law was busy wrestling with some more clay in the ground and I'm not sure what my Dad was doing but he was rather sweaty. I had a quick chat with them then lit my smoker ready to get into the hives.
The first hive I inspected was the nucleus hive which I made last Wednesday. I gave it a really small puff of smoke and opened it up. Within the second frame I saw what I was hoping to see which was a Queen cell dangling off the face of one of the combs. As this cell that I saw was already capped it must be at least 8 days old which means in just over a week she should hatch and then with some good weather do her maiden flight and get mated with drones.
Queen Cell
Next was the main hive and to start with I checked the super I put on last week for any honey. At the moment there is no honey in there but under the Queen excluder in the half brood box below there about 3 frames almost absolutely full of honey and also mostly capped. This is the honey that I will be leaving them as stores for a couple of reasons. Firstly they worked hard for it so they deserve it and secondly as there has already been brood raised in the cells it may taint the honey. The honey in the super is on a combination of drawn out clean frames and foundation only frames so will be clean for when they start filling it with honey.
When I moved onto the main brood chamber I was keeping an eye out for the Queen and any signs of Queen cells. Within a few cells I had found everything I needed to find but not what I wanted to see; I needed to see eggs, pollen and larva but I wanted to see the Queen! After a couple more frames I was rewarded with a sight of Her Majesty!
When I had finished the inspection I put the hive together and went over to help my Dad move some equipment around the land. We moved a large storage box to a corner and when we got there we saw a frog. Unfortunately it was a rather camera shy little beast and kept jumping away before I got a decent picture of it but you can just see it in the below picture.
As I've already mentioned in previous posts my Dad has had to give up one of his allotments, which is the one my Bees have been taking residence in. You may also be aware that we have acquired the rights to use another bit of land in our area. The owner of this land has given us the OK to keep Bees on the land so the next problem was getting the Bees there.
The problem with moving Bees is that if you are moving them less than 3 miles away from where they were then they may get confused and when they leave the hive return to where they previously were. I searched the internet and asked a few people and the general consensus was that winter is actually a fairly good time to move the Bees anyway. This is because the Bees aren't flying much at the moment due to cold weather and when the good weather returns (he says optimistically!) the Bees should re-orientate them selves to their new location.
All this week has been snowy and freezing so luckily me and my Dad timed it just right by moving the Bees just before the weather turned. I'd already ordered some straps to put around the hives to make sure they didn't separate in transit and I took some cardboard to block the entrances with tape to hold it in place. When the hives were strapped up it was as simple as putting them in a wheelbarrow then move them to the car to then be taken to the new site. Below are the photos I took during this.
My Dad wheeling a hive to the car
Both hives in the car ready to be moved
A nice big steaming pile of horse manure ready to be dug in to the land!
A nice row of trees planted, will look better when in full blossom covered in Bees!
The hives in their new home
Straps removed, tape off and entrances unblocked
The row of raspberries has grown some what
I took the lid off the hives to see how much fondant they had left
If you look carefully you can just see a little bee flying near the entrance
Me, Steph and Lauren have been on holiday in Corfu for the last week so I haven't had time to post for a while. Since coming back from holiday I have done another inspection and done a bit of home brewing so I have plenty to write about in the next few days to catch up. It makes sense to start with the inspection I did just prior to going on holiday.
It was a lovely summers day, which made a change due to the horrible weather we've been having, so me and Steph went up to see the Bees. We also took Steph's aunt as she was interested in finding out how the hives work. Lauren was also present and to begin with Steph's aunt looked after her while me and Steph inspected the first 2 hives. The hive I checked was the one that I believe is either Queen-less or failing. This hive still has workers and small amounts of brood but not much other activity though there seems to be plenty of stores. The hive Steph checked was much better. Eggs, brood and Queen Bee-Atrix all to be seen with plenty of workers and activity. We didn't use smoke and by the end of it there was a few angry Bees but once the lids were back on the hives they all settled down.
After that Steph took over baby sitting duties and handed her suit to her aunt. Me and Lyn (Steph's aunt) entered the apiary and started looking through the supers. Everything was going well for the first few frames when disaster struck and one of our party got stung. I was stood behind the hive with a frame in my hand with Bees all over it... I didn't get stung. Lyn was stood just to my side peering over the hive, less than a half a foot away from me... she didn't get stung. Steph was stood a few metres away from the side of the apiary... she didn't get stung. Lauren was in her mothers arms, also a few metres away from the hive... she DID get stung, further more she got stung right on her eye lid!! The next few minutes went by quite quickly and I'm not sure how much I remember about it all!
Steph took Lauren much further away from hives, to the car. Lauren is screaming and saying "BEE...EYE!!"
Lyn went to the car and quickly got out of the suit.
I put the hive back together quicker than I have ever done and nearly tripped up leaving the apiary!
I ran back to the car, again nearly tripping up over raspberry bushes and the slippery path.
Back at the car I removed my suit and started the car, Laurens eye is swelling up and she seems to be hyper ventilating, I feel somewhat panicky and start going over any first aid training I have had in the past... my mind is blank other than making sure she can still breathe, which luckily she had no problems with.
I set off from the allotment at what seemed like setting off from the Formula 1 starting blocks (and then slowing down again realising crashing would do no-one any favours).
The next 15 minute journey to the hospital seemed like an eternity, with Steph sat in the back next to Lauren making sure her condition doesn't start deteriorating. She had got a lot quieter and was seeming to start nodding off, albeit it was approaching nap time and she does usually fall asleep in the car.
We managed to keep her awake long enough to get her into A&E where I took her and ran with her across the car park (later I was told that when I was running across the car park she was smiling and laughing but I couldn't see that).
Once inside the hospital, typically, she seemed to improve drastically. The nurse gave her some calpol and sent us back to the waiting room and when finally called in again she was given the all clear and some stickers for being such a brave girl (although we passed on the sticker with a bee on it!).
When we arrived back home she was absolutely fine, just with a slightly swollen eye which later bruised slightly just in time for our holiday. Looking back we realised that taking her up to the allotment while we did an inspection was a little silly, though in the past she has been closer and seemed to enjoy looking through the netting at the hives. Next time we all go to the allotment she will be kept well away from the apiary until she is a little older and can have her own suit.
About a month ago I purchased my third full hive and have been building it and painting it over the last few weeks. As with the last hive I bought, this one is from www.fragile-planet.co.uk. The last hive I bought from them was fairly easy to construct and had 2 supers, this hive has 3 supers included and was incredibly easy to construct; this one just seemed better made, the saw cuts more precise and smooth. I had heard people at my local Bee meeting say to avoid them but I have had no issues with them. Below is a picture of the hive fully built but the supers haven't been painted yet. The reason I paint them is because they are made of ply boards rather than cedar which doesn't need to be painted. Also in the picture at the far right you can just see a demijohn full of elder flower wine, there'll be a post on that later!
The reason I started with the building of the hive is that today I took the hive up to the apiary to move the swarm into from the nuc box that it was in. The supers are still unpainted in my loft as I have a couple of spare supers ready anyway so there is no urgency to finish them. So from the above picture I took all the bits that are painted white up to the allotment, stopping off at my Dads to pick the keys up for the gate.
The Bad News!
The first hive I inspected when I arrived at the apiary was the first hive I bought. The last mention of this hive was in a previous post, that can be found here, in which I mentioned the multiple eggs in the cells, possibly indicating laying workers or a new Queen that hasn't learnt to lay properly; in the last weeks since then I have checked on them a couple of times and all the brood has been drone brood, when I went today there was no brood, no eggs and no sign of a Queen. What I think has happened is that I did have a Queen but due to bad weather she never managed to get mated and so started laying drone brood. After a couple of weeks of this I believe the workers have committed regicide (killed the Queen) due to her ineptness. The problem with this is that the Bees have no means to make a new Queen. Due to this I have taken a frame of eggs from one of my other hives and after shaking all the Bees off the frame, placed it into the hive. I'm hoping next time I check the hive I will see a Queen cell or 2 on the frame.
The Worse News and Good News!
When I opened the nuc hive I had a bit of a shock. Over the last few weeks I have been feeding the hive with sugar syrup but due to lack of space in the nucleus hive I was unable to put a frame feeder in so used a baggy feeder; this is basically a plastic bag with syrup in that has a cut in the top so the bees have access to the syrup. I think that the cut I made in the bag could have been too large and the syrup leaked all over the back of the hive because when I lifted the lid one end was covered in mould! The majority of it was on the hive rather than the frames so it wasn't as bad as could be, the Bees were still doing well, but the hive may be beyond repair as the mould was quite thick and wouldn't wipe off. The better news is that I have managed to move the frames over to the newly built hive successfully and put a frame feeder in full of syrup so hopefully no more mould! This hive is the one with Queen Bee-atrix in who is marked with a white dot so really easy to see. I easily spotted her when passing the frames over. I haven't taken a picture of the moldy hive but have taken a picture where you can see part of the frame that has been marked.
The Better News!
The last hive I checked is my first hive I bought from fragile-planet and also the one that the swarm came from. I haven't seen any evidence of having a Queen in any of the checks I've done since the swarm left the hive but I also have tried not to disturb the hive too much until today. When I opened the hive everything seemed good. The frame feeder was empty so I filled it with syrup and will keep feeding them until they are successfully storing their own honey. The first frame I checked was doing well, the Bees had drawn half the bare foundation out into comb and better still the next frame had eggs in it! This means I have a successful laying Queen somewhere as the eggs were nice and neat at the bottom of the cells in a good solid pattern. While inspecting this frame I noticed a rather large Bee on the side bar of the frame. I had to look twice and when it sunk in I realized I was looking at a Queen! I was delighted, I'd managed to find an unmarked Queen, albeit she was on a frame that wasn't fully occupied and when I first saw her she was on her own. I quickly got my marking cage and pen out one handed and then attempted to catch her in the cage. My first couple of attempts were fruitless but I eventually managed to trap her in there and gently press it down so she couldn't move around too much. I then carefully put a small white dot on her back (and a few dots of white on the wings of the workers around her) and left her for a few minutes for the paint to dry. I couldn't get a picture of her as I had a frame in one hand while in the other I was juggling the pen and hive tool. When I was happy the paint was dry I carefully replaced the frame and checked the last few frames. As I was putting the hive back together I noticed a Bumblebee had landed on a piece of equipment I had lying around.
I also took a picture of some borage that we are growing next to the apiary. Honeybees apparently go mad for borage. At the moment it looks rather unimpressive but when the blue flowers are opened up it will look great.
Just over a week ago I got a text message from Dad who was up at his allotment doing allotment things. I get fairly regular texts from him when he is up there, especially when it is good weather. The normal text that I receive from him reads either "Uggins a bees out" or "Not many bees art today", which to a Yorkshireman makes perfect sense but to others may not be as easy to comprehend; The translations are "Lots of bees are flying in and out of the hive today" or "There aren't that many bees flying today". The day I'm making reference to today was a quite different message, it read "Emergemcy aig swarm of bees in pear tree" which should read "Emergency a big swarm of bees in pear tree" but he is also not the best at texting but I'll let him off for that. When I'd received the text I got excited but also a bit worried as I didn't know how long it had been there or how long it would stay there. I also wanted to know if it had come from my hives.
I wasn't available to go straight there so as soon as I was I rushed up there with my nuc hive that I built earlier in the year with the aim of trying to catch it. Upon arrival I had a walk over to see how big the swarm was. Now even though I've never seen a swarm before I believed this to be one of fair size, below is a video of it. I apologise for the heavy breathing in the video, I had a bit of a cold at the time and sounded a bit like Darth Vader!
The next thing I did was put the nuc hive under the swarm. I took another video at this stage but all it shows is the hive under the swarm. It's here if you want to see it but it really doesn't show anything different.
After I had my equipment in place I started trying to get the Bees to go in the nuc hive. One way I've seen of doing this on youtube is to literally grab handfuls of Bees and place them in the hive. I tried this and it wasn't really working in doing anything other than annoying them, so much so that I received my second ever sting from my Bees and it was right on my backside! No, this method wasn't working. I decided that it was time to bring out the smoke. I have been told a few times that smoke is not needed for collecting a swarm but I thought it would help me. The usual method is to cut off the branch that the swarm is on and then give it a sharp shake to dislodge the Bees into your hive or transport box; this wasn't an option as they were wrapped around the tree trunk. Anyway, I lit my smoker and started blowing smoke above the swarm and at the opposite side to the hive, hoping that this would encourage them to go down and across into the hive. I thought this was working as a lot of Bees were making their way into the hive as seen in the next video.
Hooray I thought, I've caught them! So I packed up and left them to make their own way into the hive. When I got home I had a feeling of a job well done and was thinking "that wasn't too hard was it". The next day I found out how wrong I'd been! When I arrived back at the allotment I found the Bees had regrouped on the tree exactly as they were to begin with! I was a bit dismayed but I had to do something about it as they had started making comb on the tree and would have eventually perished if they stayed there, not to mention making it hard for my Dad to work in that area of the allotment. I decided to have another go at the smoke them into the hive method but this time I was a little more forceful, to the point where I think I was annoying them a bit and I did get another sting, this time on my hand.
After a while I'd got to a similar point to my last video with the Bees going into the hive when I spotted something familiar; a large Bee with a white spot on her back! After seeing this I knew where the swarm had come from as she is the only one of my hives with a marked Queen! I had a small attempt to catch her on the end of my hive tool but she was having none of it so I carried on smoking above the hive to get them to go in. After a while I think I saw her majesty walking into the hive but couldn't be sure as now there were hundreds of Bees climbing all over one another to get into the hive. The next, and last, video shows this.
After nearly all the Bees had made their way into the hive I decided to leave and come back the next day to make sure they had settled in ok. I packed up all my gear and gently moved the hive into the apiary next to my other 2 hives then left.
It turned out the weather was really lousy for the next few days so it was longer than I wanted before returning to the hive and this time I was again anxious for the swarm. When I did get to return it didn't look good to begin with; there were a few dead Bees on the entrance but when I opened the hive up I could see it was full of alive Bees but they were very lethargic. I believe this is because they were starving (the next time I build a nuc hive I will make it bigger so I can fit some way of feeding them such as a frame feeder). Knowing that there wasn't enough room in the hive for a frame feeder I decided that the best solution would be to fill a freezer bag with sugar syrup and place it in the space above the frames with a slit at the top so the Bees could feed from it. When I had done this, and spilt a load over the tops of the frames, I could see a marked increase in the liveliness of them. I will continue to feed them this way until I can put them into a full sized hive.
After all the rubbish weather we've had in Wakefield this May the last few days have been a really refreshing change, the weather has been absolutely smashing! For nearly a week now we have had glorious sunshine and I have been desperate to get to my apiary and see how my hives are doing, but have been stuck doing the late shift at work; this Friday was my first day off and as luck would be the weather was still great so I did my inspection.
When I got to the apiary I got suited up and just watched the Bees for a few minutes; there was lots of bees returning with pollen and nectar from both hives. So far so good. With the weather being so nice there would be a much reduced number of Bees in the hive as they are out foraging; due to this I decided to be brave and didn't use smoke. The first hive I went into was my original hive which had queen cells in it last time I checked. I was hoping to find the queen and mark her so I would be able to find her easier in the future. Within a couple of frames my hopes where raised when I could see eggs in the cells but a second later they were dashed slightly as I noticed some of the cells had multiple eggs in them. More than one egg in a cell can be a sign of worker Bees laying but sometimes newly mated queens lay more than one egg until they get used to laying. Also the eggs were right at the bottom of the cells which is also encouraging as laying workers will lay at the side of the cell as their abdomens aren't as long. I continued searching but was unable to find the queen. There was plenty of honey stored in the brood area and lots of pollen as well, they have even started storing some honey in the supers.
The second hive was a lot simpler. I found the queen in the second frame so there was no concerns. The hive had plenty of stores and also plenty of room to expand into the new frames. All in all I was very happy with the progress of this hive. When I moved onto the super I had a very pleasant surprise, they had started storing loads of honey and some of it looked like they where about to start capping it. This means I could be harvesting some honey very soon! As the majority of the honey will probably be from oil seed rape flower I will have to hurry up with extracting the honey as oil seed rape honey has a tendency to set solid in the cells! Hopefully that won't happen but if it does I'll just have to scrape it all out and maybe dissolve it in water to make mead!
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!
Tuesday just gone was my latest inspection of my beehive and maybe the last time I visit a single colony as I'm hoping to split the colony on my next inspection. As usual when I arrived at the allotment I started by lighting my smoker and then going to see the Bees from just outside the apiary. There were a few Bees coming and going but not a huge amount of activity. I suited up and went into the apiary... it was at this point my smoker went out! I exited the apiary and together with my father got the smoker working properly!
Once in the apiary properly I removed the roof and started looking through the super; I was happy to see quite a good amount of honey being stored. I removed the super next and started working on the brood chamber. Underneath the Queen excluder I was shocked to see how many Bees there actually was; in mid summer last year there were a lot of Bees and I would say that there was as many as then! When I started working through the brood I could see lots of sealed brood and larva at all stages and then I saw her majesty. I didn't see any Queen cells but due to the amount of Bees in the chamber I guess that they are probably not far off being ready to swarm. When I had finished my inspection I put the hive back together but added another super so there are 2 on now. This should give them plenty of space for honey and also relieve congestion in the hive. The next time I visit them I plan to split the hive, that will probably be my next post and possibly a long post depending on how successful I am!
I took a few photos while at the allotment, 1 inside the hive and a short video and a few of the flowers in the area that the girls will hopefully be working on.
Bees in the super
Oil seed rape in field next to allotment
Plum tree in blossom
Close up of plum blossom
Close up of apple blossom
Close up of pear blossom
Dead red nettle, considered a weed but I quite like it and apparently so do the Bees
