Apiary Inspection's August 2013

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!

 

Apiary inspection 08/09/2011

Upon arrival at the apiary I was happy to see a good flow of Bees coming and going from the hive, many of them looked to be covered in a fine white dust; this is pollen from Balsam flowers. At the moment there are quite a few flowers still out in the area but the main one is Himalayan Balsam in the nearby woodland.

After I got my smoker lit I suited up and headed into the apiary. The first job was to put the comb back into the hive which I harvested the honey from last week. As this comb is already fully drawn out it is ready straight away for the Bees to start storing honey again. There were 4 frames that still had foundation and no stores so these were taken out and 4 frames of fully drawn comb put in there place. At this point I had a slight dilemma, I had 1 frame left to put in but all the frames already in the super had honey in them. In the end I decided that I'd take the fully drawn frame home rather than taking away some honey they had started to store.

After I'd done everything in the super i moved onto the brood chamber. In the first 2 frames there was hardly any brood but loads of honey stored; I thought the super frames were heavy when fully loaded with honey, they were nothing compared to a brood frame covered in Bees and full of honey. A few frames later and there was a good amount of brood at all stages from egg to larva to caped cells. Unfortunately I didn't see the Queen this time but due to there being eggs present it shows she is more than likely there somewhere. I did notice that the amount of brood is reducing, which I presume is because winter is fast approaching so they are winding down.

The second big job for this inspection was to treat for varroa. Each time I have counted the mites there has been a steady increase in amount present in the hive. The treatment I used was APILIFE VAR; this is a treatment made from essential oils from natural ingredients and apparently varroa mites have not built a resistance to it. It works by suffocating the mites with the vapors. To apply the APILIFE VAR I opened the packet and split the bar in half. Using half the packet I then broke it again into quarters and applied a piece to each corner of the brood chamber. The other half will be used in a week from the first day and then another packet it used for the following 2 weeks. In all full treatment takes 4 weeks. Due to the treatment bar being slightly raised I had to remove the Queen excluder otherwise the treatment bar would have been crushed by the excluder; this isn't a problem as long as I make sure the Queen is below the excluder when I put it back on in the spring.

The last task was to take the final varroa count for the time being; this will be the final one for at least a month as there is no point counting the varroa while treatment is in place. Once I'd took the hive debris out of the hive and returned home I began the varroa count. It took me a while to do and in the end there were 91 mites which gives the following results when put into the varroa calculator.

Average Daily Mite Fall = 10.1 varroa mites
Estimated number of adult varroa mites in the colony = 510
Treatment is recommended in about 8 month(s) time (counting from day of first monitoring).

The period that I did the calculation over was mainly in September but slightly into August. If I work out the varroa using the calculator but entering August as my month it gives quite different results with a recommendation to treat immediately. When I first started looking into becoming a Beekeeper I did have the mind that I wouldn't treat the Bees however now I have them and I can see the levels of mite rising so rapidly I have changed my mind; I wouldn't want to loose my Bees in the first year. Maybe when I have more hives and experience I can have a different approach.

Honey Bee on Himalayan Balsam

While walking down some woodland the other day I found a huge area of Himalayan Balsam that was alive with Honey Bees. 

I was visiting a friend and we decided to get out and see if there were any blackberries ready. Although there was a fair amount of blackberries ready we didn't collect any as another few days and they will be a lot bigger and easier to pick. We did pass a huge area of Balsam flowers and I was able to capture this photo on my phone. I did get another photo however the flower is in focus but the Bee moved and is just a blur so I haven't included it. There were literally hundreds of Bees busy collecting pollen and nectar from the flowers. The pollen in Balsam flowers is very light, almost white, and it's easy to tell when the Bees have been visiting them as they look like they have been dusted with icing sugar (to me anyway).  

The Search For Bees

In the last few days I went for a walk down the woods very near to my house. I followed the stream looking for a large patch of himalayan balsam that pops up every year. I walked a good distance before I found the area and then started looking to see if there were any Bees, especially Honey Bees, foraging on them. There were plenty of Bumble Bees, but I only managed to see 1 Honey Bee and was unable to photograph it.

Himalayan Balsam

Large Patch of  Himalayan Balsam

I carried on further until I was out of the woods and found a patch of willowherb. There were a few Honey Bees on the flowers but I only managed to photo a Bumble Bee and some other strange insect that I can't identify. Also due to the location of this patch of willowherb, there is a good chance that the Honey Bees I saw were from my hive as it is less than a mile from my hive!

Unknown Insect. Can anyone identify me?

Bumble Bee about to land on Willowherb....

Landed!