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.
Though the main body of this post is about the inspection I did on Wednesday 14th I will mention quickly that me and Steph did an inspection a couple of weeks ago. At this inspection all went well in the hives. The small hive is building up nicely and the new colony created using the snelgrove board seems to be thriving though I still haven't done a full inspection on that one. When packing up the hives some of the Bees started getting rather persistent so we left the apiary and walked far enough away so they wouldn't follow.... or so we thought; we had just taken our suits off and a bee started going for my face so I quickly went in the opposite direction to get away. Steph wasn't quick enough and received her first ever sting, on the forehead! Luckily she didn't have a reaction. She was literately saying 5 seconds before how she had never been stung!
The next inspection I did solo and that went well. All 3 colonies seem to be doing well, plenty of brood, eggs and stores in each. There were loads of flying Bees about especially from the colony that has been created most recently with the snelgrove board. The smallest hive is still progressing nicely though I would like it to be a bit stronger going into winter; I think that starting next week I will start feeding that colony to give it a boost.
When I was packing up the last hive I felt a scratch on my ankle so looked down to see the culprit...To my horror as I looked there were 3 or 4 Bees going to town on the same spot on my ankle. At first there wasn't much pain and shortly after there was an intense itching. I finished packing up quickly and got away from the Bees in case any more decided to have a go. When my suit was off and I was safely back in the car I rolled my trouser leg up and had a look at the damage; my ankle was sore but not swelling too bad. By the time I got home it had started to swell and by the next day my work shoes felt quite tight. Luckily that's the only reaction I had and now, a week later, my ankle is back to normal!
Since that inspection I have made and painted another hive stand. Yesterday (23/08/2013) I went down to the Bees and separated the colonies that were on top of one another with the snelgrove board separating them. The top hive was moved about 15 foot away and placed on my new stand; this went off without a hitch (and thankfully without any stings). My apiary looks good now with all 3 hives in it but will look better if they all make it through the winter strong. As mentioned earlier I have started feeding my smallest hive. It has a half gallon of syrup in a feeder above the colony and with any luck they will use it to build up a little faster; we'll see.
At the moment there is loads of Himalayan Balsam in flower all around the apiary. This is an excellent source of nectar and pollen for the Bees. I did try to take a good photo of the Bees in the flowers. I wasn't very successful; the Bees were being too busy and moved before the picture was taken. Below is one of the better ones although it's still not great!
While my daughter was at the childminders on Thursday me and Steph did an inspection and honey harvest. It was another glorious day and the Bees were coming and going being a busy as Bees are famous for being! The first hive checked was the smaller hive that was recently in a nucleus hive. Steph led the inspection on this one and within a few minutes we had found the Queen. She was still small but I think she was a slight bit larger than last time. I think when we go down to see them next time I will add some syrup to try to get them to build up faster. Here are a few pictures of Steph doing the inspection.
The Bees have started to build the comb up here.
The white capped area is stored honey. As this is a new hive we won't be taking any from them this year.
The main hive was quickly checked now. This hive was split into 2 a short while ago using the snelgrove method. The way I had split it was to have the Queen in the bottom hive and all the brood at the top ready to make a new Queen. Within minutes of checking the top hive I realised I had made a mistake somewhere as there where still eggs visible meaning the Queen was still there! Sure enough, in a few frames I found her. Although this is not what I intended it still will be OK as it just means that the new Queen will be raised in the bottom brood box rather than the top. Oh well, another lesson learnt! After that I decided not to check the bottom box as I didn't want to disturb any new Queen there could be.
The next thing to do was take some honey! In the frames within the hive there was an abundance of honey stored so I don't think they'll mind me taking some. This basically consisted of taking the frames out and shaking and blowing the Bees away from the comb and then taking them home!
This box is almost full of honey!
Below are a couple of videos of me and Steph shaking and blowing the frames to get the Bees off (I worded that to avoid saying "blowing the Bees off" as some may think that rude!)
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 mentioned in my last post I am quite excited (understatement) to announce the arrival of my new Bees. After the devastation of finding my hives had died earlier on in the year it is such a relief to be back in business. I consider myself very lucky to have made some good friends in the association and through one of them have been sold a new colony. Unlike the first Bees I bought, the one I just bought is a colony at full strength basically meaning that rather than the 5 frames of Bees you can get in a standard nucleus colony, I got a brood box full of frames of Bees, stores and eggs. To make it even better there is a half box of brood as well which is just brood in a super. This extra space allows for a larger amount of brood and less congestion.
When we took the hive down to the apiary site the colony was still housed in equipment lent to me by the guy who sold me the hive. I have since been down and done an inspection and transferred it all into my own equipment. I also took some frames out of the colony and placed them in a nucleus box to make a new colony. In this box I have placed a full frame of worker brood that is ready to hatch and a frame of eggs so they can raise a new Queen. I also put 2 frames of food and a frame of foundation for them to draw out themselves.
Me and Bees
I have since spoken to another Beekeeper and he has given me some guidance on how to raise a better quality Queen than the method I'm using but he says not all is lost. He recommends I knock down any Queen cells that are created until all the brood has hatched an then put another frame with only a few eggs on. This will force them to only make a few cells and then I will destroy them all apart from 1. With all the brood hatched there will be more workers to feed the new Queen cell and as there will be only a single cell to feed she will develop into a better Queen.... in theory. I will let you know how that goes on.
In the video you can see there are quite a few Bees to say the least and to the right of the main hive you can see the nucleus hive as well. In one of my next inspections I will be doing the method explained to me by the other Beekeeper to raise better Queens. It involves having a second brood area above the supers and raising a second Queen in the top but I'll go into more detail when that is done.
Happy Beekeeper. In the bottom left of pic you can see where my good wife fixed a hole in my suit!
I will start off by saying this is my first post in a while. I haven't been all that well but it's more about laziness than anything else. Anyway I'm better now but unfortunately I don't have brilliant news to share.
Yesterday was this months Beekeeping meeting and one of the things they touched upon was the threat of starvation (the main topic was something else but I'll do a separate post for that). After work today I went straight round to the Bees to see if they were fine and add some more fondant if needed. Upon approach of the hives I didn't expect to see any Bees out and about but this is to be expected due to the snow we've had recently. Upon opening the hive I was met with the worst possible sight a Beekeeper can see; a hive full of dead Bees. I was gutted and knowing this was my stronger colony I was dreading what I'd find in the next one.
When I opened the second hive my worst fears were met with the sight of a second box full of dead Bees. The worst thing about it was that it was clear that starvation had killed them due to the amount of them that were fully in the cells, as If trying to get the last drop of food, however the Bees in both colonies had plenty of fondant and one hive even had a small amount of sealed honey.
Frame with stores; unfortunately they were clustered at other end of hive
The problem, I think, is that they haven't been able to find the food and this is due to the cold weather. When it gets cold the Bees form a very tight cluster to conserve energy but in this cluster it is hard for them to move. With the frames with food in them at the other side of the hive to the cluster it was impossible for them to get to it. The bad luck part, for me, is that it had happened to both my colonies which does technically now mean I am no longer a Beekeeper.
I have already started inquiring into replacing them but starting again is so depressing, not to mention financially taxing! With any luck I'll be able to either catch a swarm or maybe purchase a small nucleus hive from someone and start building back up from there. Either way this won't be the last of my adventures in Beekeeping and I'm sure there'll be more set backs but I plan on learning from this and hopefully it won't happen again!
Hive floor covered in dead Bees. There were a lot more but I've already cleared loads.
Just a very quick post to say that it was my birthday in the last week. Below I've included a photo of the cake my beautiful wife made for me. She was super sneaky in making it, coming home from work in her dinner break to make it and clearing all the evidence. I'm not going to say how old I am but there is a good chance you'll be able to guess!
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
In November 2012 I received some bad news from my Dad and I have been putting off posting about it until now. The news was in relation to the allotment my Dad has held since 1984, which is also the one that I keep my Bees on, stating that he will have to give up this allotment at the end of January 2013. The reason they have given him is that because he already has another allotment he is not allowed a second. The other one is withing walking distance of his house and has his greenhouses on so I can't expect him to give this one up however it is right next to a school so Bees will be a big no on this site!
Between me and my Dad there were a few mixed emotions, mainly a feeling of slight anger from my Dad and panic from myself. My Dad has many well established trees in the allotment that won't be easy work to move not to mention that he had just spent a good many hours digging in the manure to prepare the soil for next years growing season and then there's the Bees. In the small time frame from receiving notice to end of January there is not much time to find a new site, prepare the site and the move the Bees.
Now for the more positive news. I have been mentioning my problem to a few people and have a few friends who have said they will keep an eye out for places but so far no luck. I have also sent an email to the allotment committee to ask if it is at all possible to either sign the allotment over to my name, or split the allotment in 2 leaving me the half with the Bees or get an extension to give me more time. They have not got back to me yet. In the mean time my Dad has been far more successful than me and has found a friend with some land that he's willing to let us use.
The land is approximately 1.5 miles away from my dads allotment as the Bee flies and few hundred feet further travel from my home but the best thing is that is on my route to and from work so if needed I can visit straight from work. The land is slightly bigger by my reckoning using google maps to measure the boundaries (roughly), but not by a great amount. There is a good water source right next to the land in the form of a stream. The land has been used to raise pigs in the last few years so there is plenty of well rotted pig muck just under the surface.
I have included some photos below, including an attempt at a panoramic, and in these photos you'll be able to see that there is still a load of work to be done but with some hard work I'm sure it'll look excellent in no time and be producing loads of food and room for plenty of Bee hives!
Weeds, junk and tree stumps
The first tree planted! Baking apples!
Access to the stream
More of the stream
More weeds!
The twigs sticking out of the ground in a row are raspberry bushes
Last Tuesday
was one of the rare occasions when I had a little time off work and Lauren was
with her child minder, so I took the opportunity to brush up on my hive
inspection skills with Ian.
We arrived at
the apiary in the morning to bright sunshine and a bit of breeze after a heavy
rain shower earlier in the morning. We could see a lot of activity around both
hives as we suited up and approached them.
I inspected
the hive that contains Queen Beelinda. There were about 4 heavy frames of busy
and healthy looking bees; I spotted the tell-tale white dot on the back of the
Queen, but unfortunately there were no stores of food. I did also find one very
mouldy frame which I thought contained dead brood and pollen.
Ian inspected
the other hive which has a double brood box and found much the same but with no
mould and some stores.
Close up of mouldy frame
Mouldy Frame
Both hives are
going to be fed now with sugar syrup (or fondant as the weather gets colder)
until the spring, when hopefully the weather will be better than this year!
The weather was nice, Steph was at work, I wasn't and Lauren was at the child minders so the time was right to do my inspection. I went up to the allotment and had a walk over to the apiary where there were loads of Bees coming and going from 2 of my hives, and absolutely none coming from the other. The one that didn't have activity has been getting worse each time I've visited so I wasn't surprised to see no activity. The borage that is growing next to the apiay is doing extremely well, almost to the point where it is overtaking any weeds in the area! Below is the first video I took of my Bees foraging on borage.
Once I'd finished with my borage video I got suited up and entered the apiary and started working on my first hive; the hive with no Bees coming out of it. Once opened I was gutted, but not surprised, to find there were no Bees at all in the hive and all the stores were empty. Some of the comb had been damaged which probably means wasps have been and robbed the hive. There still were a few wasps flying about trying to get a sugary treat. I moved as much of the hive out of the apiary with the wasps following me and placed it a short distance away to be delt with later.
The next hive was a lot better but still not perfect. There were plenty of Bees and brood, and I saw the Queen (Bee-atrix) but there is still an awful lot of comb that they just haven't drawn out yet. I believe this to be down to the bad weather we've had all year; it takes a lot of carbohydrates or sugars to make wax. I decided that I will heavily feed them from now to give them a better chance of building up before winter.
The last hive was very very similar to the last, the only differance was that there was slightly more stores and it was Queen Bee-linda who was on show. Again I will give them a good amount of feed before winter and again hope they survive. I didn't know what to do with the first hive I removed from the apiary that had all the drawn out comb in it. I finally decided to make my surviving hives bigger; now I have one hive with a double brood chamber and the other has 2 supers. This may have been the wrong thing to do but if I feed them lots from now hopefully they will fill out and occupy the new space. When everything was closed up I took another video of the borage forage which is below.
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!
