Apiary Inspection and Honey Collection 25/07/2013

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!)

Click here if you can't see the video

Click here if you can't see the video

Apiary Visit - Queen and Queen Cell

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.

Apiary Inspection 25/05/2012

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!

Apiary Inspection 08/05/2012

Today after work I visited the Bees and did a good inspection of both hives. When I got to the apiary the first thing I did was watch the Bees coming and going for a few minutes. I could see Bees returning from the nearby oil seed rape fields loaded up with pollen. When I'd got the smoker lit and I had suited up I dived into the first hive.

The hive had still got a queen excluder under the brood chamber that was put in place to stop Queen Bee-atrix from absconding. My first job was to remove this then place the whole hive onto my newly constructed hive stand. When I started working through the hive I was really lucky in that the Queen was on the first frame I looked at (the first couple of frames aren't fully drawn out yet so I didn't have a proper look at them). There were eggs and brood of all levels present in the hive. As this hive seems to be doing well I didn't spend too much time on it and did a quick inspection. One thing that I noted was that on one of the last frames the Bees had made some odd looking comb. It's hard to describe what it looked like and I will try for a photo next time. The comb was kind of bent around and overlapped, this may cause a problem later as the Queen may be able to hide in the flap created. I may have to remove this odd shaped comb at some time! When I was happy that I'd done all I could in the hive I filled up the frame feeder with syrup and put the hive back together with a extra super so the Bees have more room to start expanding.

Onto my original hive. This is the hive that had the Queen removed and last time I was at the hive there were Queen cells. By now the Queen cells should have hatched and any day now the Queen should be doing her mating flight. When I opened the hive I was impressed with the amount of Bees but there was no brood or eggs which to be honest was expected. One thing that did shock me was that there was still Queen cells present so I took a few photos of them. The only thing I can think of is that the Queen has already hatched and killed the Queens in the other cells, but the worker Bees haven't had time to remove the dead Queen cells. I did see 2 Queen cells that were empty. Fingers crossed that next time I visit there will be eggs. The next new task for me then would be to try to mark the new Queen to make her easy to see. Usually Queens are marked a different colour each year but as I am colour blind I am going to just use white to begin with. In the hive there was lots of stored nectar and hopefully they will start storing in the supers as soon as eggs are being laid.

Below are the pictures of the Queen cells I took.

A Queen cell

2 Queen cells and a few drones visible as well

Busy busy Bees!

Apiary inspection 10/04/2012

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

Apiary Inspection 26/03/2012

This week in Wakefield has been especially sunny and Monday was no exception. As it had been over a week since last seeing the Bees and also my daughter was at her childminders it seemed like the perfect time to do the inspection. Upon arrival at the allotment I got the smoker lit and while that was getting going went and had a look at the apiary; from the other side of the mesh fence I could see several dozen Bees just hovering in front of the hive facing the entrance, these are Bees doing their maiden flight and getting to know what the hive looks like from the outside.

After a quick look I returned to the car to get suited up and then grabbed my smoker and headed into the apiary. At this stage they were very calm and I managed to remove the mouse guard from the entrance of the hive. I then puffed a small amount of smoke into the hive and carefully lifted the lid. Inside I could see that there was very little of the fondant left that I put in prior to winter; next visit I will completely remove it even if there is any left and replace it with a empty super for them to start storing honey in. While checking the supers I did notice a frame with pollen stored which was next to a frame with brood in it. Due to this I was extra vigilant looking for the Queen; I didn't find her but there was plenty of stored honey!

Next I started working through the brood chamber. The first frame had no stores and no brood but the next was a little more encouraging as it had plenty of stored honey in it. The following 2 frames where better still with pollen and brood with Bees all over it. The next frame in was the best of all as I could see very clearly, in all her glory, still with a nice big white spot on her back, Queen Beeatrix! As I watched her walking over the comb I did actually witness her with her abdomen deep in a cell laying a egg! That was all I needed to see so was much quicker checking the rest of the hive. I didn't see any Queen cells yet so don't think they are quite ready for swarming yet!

After putting the hive back together I was talking to my Dad, who was also in the allotment, and he told me the guy in the plot 2 down had been stung 3 times while I was doing my inspection, however he hadn't been stung once and he was only about 4 metres away. The majority of Bees seemed to be flying in the opposite direction as well. He was using his rotavator at the time and me and my Dad believe they didn't like the vibrations. Anyway, I apologized to the guy and he seemed ok, I just hope they don't make a habit of it because if the allotment council start receiving complaints then I may have to re-home the Bees.

Apiary inspection 15/03/2012

My first actual inspection of the new year and as a married man (people will get fed up of me saying that soon, but not me!). This is the first opportunity I've had to write this post as I've been rather busy and only just found time to do the inspection. The weather has been lovely over the past few days so me and my wife went up to the allotment. We took our daughter with us so she could see the chickens in someone else's allotment and because we couldn't find anyone to look after her at short notice; due to this my wife hasn't been able to have a look inside the hive yet this year but there will be plenty of time for that.

I started off by suiting up but decided against using smoke. Unlike last time I visited the hive, this time I actually opened it up to have a good look inside. I started by removing the roof and was shocked to see how much less fondant was in there than last time, the number of Bees must have really increased! After I had removed the next layer which was the crown board I could really see that my Bees have started getting busy. In the super that I left them with overwinter they have started storing honey but not more than a frames worth at the moment. At this stage there was no sign of the Queen however there were signs of new workers and not a drone in sight, all good signs. I then removed the super and started inspecting the brood nest; I was trying to be as quick as possible at this point as I didn't want to disturb them too much more than I already had. The first couple of frames didn't have much in them other than small patches of stored pollen but when I got to the 3rd and 4th I could see how busy the Queen must have been. There was a frame nearly full of brood at varying different levels all the way from eggs to sealed brood and the other frame was half covered in pollen and honey store! Due to the presence of eggs I decided that I must still have a Queen inside so at that point I closed up the hive, anyway they were getting a little frisky at this point and I was very glad to have my suit on! Before closing up I did take a couple of photos which I have included below.

Some excess comb removed from above the brood frames with my hive tool

Literally pouring out of the crownboard!

Apiary inspection 29/09/2011

Just a quick post to say that on Thursday this week the last stage of the varroa treatment was added to my hive. As anyone else in the UK will know this week has been incredibly hot and sunny for this time of year and where I live, in Wakefield, was no exception; this helped as it meant a lot of Bees were out and about foraging. 

When I got to the hive there was a good flow of Bees coming and going. Once inside the hive I did a quick check in the supers to see how their stores were doing and was happy with what they had although I will keep an eye on this. When I start doing my Winter inspections a quick way to tell if they have enough stores is to tip the hive with one hand and if it tips easy they need feeding. That tip was given to me by someone I've been talking to on Google+. After checking the supers I did a quick check of the brood chamber and managed to find the Queen, eggs and larva so everything is still o.k. in there The only thing left to do now was to replace the treatment. Below are a few photos of what the treatment looks like.

The packet with directions, ingredients, batch number and best before date.

Half a bar of treatment, this half is wrapped in cling film to keep it fresh.

The above bar broken up and put in each corner of the brood chamber.

Apiary inspection 22/09/11

This inspection was mainly to replace the varroa treatment with a fresh dose. Next week will be the last treatment and then I'll be able to do a count to see if the level of mites has dropped.

As my sister was available to babysit both me and Steph did this inspection. Our initial intention was to do so really quick inspection but it turned out slightly longer than originally planned, but not by too much.

Upon arrival at the apiary both myself and Steph were a little shocked to see that 2 of the trees in the allotment had been chopped down; they were the cherry tree and one of the plum trees. Although my dad had been saying for a while he was getting rid of them it still came as quite a shock. They weren't the most productive trees and the other plum tee although less than half the size does regularly produce hundreds of fruits.

When we got over the initial shock of the missing trees I went up to see the Bees while Steph got suited up. From about 10 foot away I could see plenty of traffic coming and going from the hive. I then returned to the car and got suited up myself  before both of us headed to the hive.

Again this week we went in without smoke. To begin with I lifted the hive roof and crownboard off exposing the super. We started removing frames and was happy to see plenty of honey in storage. It was at this point that the Bees started to get a little aggressive and before I knew it there were loads if Bees flying around buzzing angrily. Rather than risk a full scale attack we backed off, carefully replacing the crownboard, and regrouped at the car. We then got the smoker lit and returned to the hive.

After a few small puffs of smoke in the hive we removed to crownboard again and continued to inspect the hive. This time they were a lot calmer and we managed to finish checking the super without further issue. There were no eggs in the super, only honey! In fact there were about 5 frames of honey, nearly full.

When we moved onto the brood chamber the first frame we inspected was completely empty, but in previous weeks this was full of stores. I was slightly worried that they didn't have enough stored honey at this point but when the next frame was lifted my worries were over as it had quite a weight behind it and was full of honey. The next frame was the same but with a much darker honey, though unfortunately I won't get to taste the dark honey; this is due to the treatment in the hive possibly tainting the taste rather than any health risk.

When we got to the central frames the main thing we were looking for was either the Queen or eggs. In the first of the central frames there were no eggs but there was larva present and capped brood. The next frame had more capped brood, larva at a younger stage in development but most importantly there were eggs present. This was a relief as I haven't seen evidence of the Queen in a couple of weeks. The next frame was better still; plenty of eggs, larva present and Queen Beeatrix herself!

The final step was to add the varroa treatment and then quickly pack the hive back up. By this point they were getting a little frisky again and I could hear them banging off the veil of my suit. Luckily neither of us got stung but I believe that we could have if we had stayed much longer, though I still don't think they are aggressive. The Bees are generally more defensive when they have less stores and varroa treatment is in place. Next week will be the last stage of the treatment. I will have to keep an eye on their stores and if needed feed them with a sugar syrup.

Apiary visit 16/09/2011

Last week I put treatment in my hive to combat the rising level of varroa mites. As it's a 4 week course of treatment yesterday was the time to put in the second stage. During the week I have been reading about the treatment I am using, which is APILIFE VAR, and have read a few shock stories about it. The problems people have reported include Queens dying, Bees absconding and very aggressive behavior. Due to this I have been very worried through the week and dreading what I was going to see when I got to the apiary. Also there has been some awful weather this last week including very strong winds and heavy rainfall.

Luckily when I went to the allotment yesterday the weather was perfect; the sun was shining, the sky was clear and there was nothing more than a gentle breeze. The allotment had lots of people taking advantage of the good weather including the guy in the allotment next to the one I keep the Bees. After saying hello to the guy I suited up and got into the apiary. This time I didn't even light the smoker as I was only planning on being in the hive a short time. In the apiary I was really pleased to see Bees coming and going, with quite a few with full pollen baskets. 

Upon opening the hive the first place I looked was in the supers; I was amazed to see how much honey the Bees have collected seeing as though I collected the liquid gold a couple of weeks ago. As mentioned in an earlier post all honey collected will be left for the Bees to help them get through the winter. When checking through the super frames I was expecting to see eggs laid by the Queen, due to there being nothing to stop the Queen getting into the supers, but there weren't any. After the quick look through the super I moved to the brood chamber. The treatment bars I'd put in last week were still present in the back corners but the pieces added to the front corners of the hive had vanished, I assume the Bees dragged them out. At this stage the Bees seemed to be getting slightly agitated so I hurried in getting the old treatment out and the new one in. After that I quickly put the hive back together and exited the apiary.

When I was clear of the apiary I got talking to the guy in the next allotment. He told me his son has recently got some Bees in the York area. His son's Bees are apparently a lot more aggressive than my Bees and has been advised he shouldn't have been sold them in the first place as a beginner. His Bees generally follow him all the way back to his house, which is at least 60 foot away by what I was described; my Bees follow me about 10 foot then go back to the hive. The place I was talking to the guy was only 15 foot from my hive and I had already taken my suit off while talking to him and had no Bees bothering me. I just hope they stay that way as if they get aggressive I would have no option but to remove them from the allotment and at the moment have no where else to put them. 

I will also mention while I am writing this post that Wakefield and Pontefract Beekeepers held an event at Newmillerdam last weekend which me, Steph and the baby went to on the Sunday. It was held in the small boat house and had a few tables with information, example hive, an observation hive and a table for honey sampling. As it was such a small area we only stopped a short amount of time but managed to taste some honey that was flavoured with stem ginger. Both me and Steph agreed this honey was delicious and would at some point attempt to make some. There was the guy that ran the training course there but I didn't manage to talk to him as it was so cramped in there and he was talking to someone who was interested in becoming a Beekeeper. 

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.

Apiary inspection 30/08/2011 and Honey Extraction!!!

Last Tuesday I went up to the apiary to remove the honey that my Bees have kindly made for me. I didn't want to take too much from them as they have worked so hard for it so I took 5 completely capped frames and left all the half full ones. The Bees will continue to collect honey up until the flowers have gone but what they collect from now will all be theirs and hopefully this will reduce the amount of sugar syrup I'll need to feed them over the winter.

This time I was on my own and didn't take any pictures and will be taking less pictures in the future as I don't want too much repetition. When I arrived the first thing I did was light the smoker and then suit up. When I was suited up I went to the hive and removed one of the supers and swapped around the frames so I had 5 full frames of honey and 5 frames the Bees haven't got round to drawing out yet. The weight of the frames were impressive and later on worked out to be over a kilogram each. When I'd got the frames of honey I closed the hive up and collected the debris underneath to do a Varroa count later. I didn't inspect the brood chamber this time as the hive had been open a while by then.

When I got home I sent an email to the secretary of Wakefield Beekeepers asking for the contact to hire an extractor for the day. I was sent details of a man called Keith that lives a couple of junctions up the motorway so was in short driving distance. I called him on Thursday and arranged to pick the extractor up after work. The extractor is a 9 frame electric one and it cost £2 to rent for the day, bargain.

The frames in the super

A almost fully capped super frame

Using a sharp knife the cappings are removed

A sticky job but fun

The frames are placed in the extractor which spins at high speed forcing the honey out of the frames

The liquid gold running into a storage bucket via a pair of tights! This filters out bits of wax in the honey. I will need a better filter if I intend to sell the honey

The first jar of my honey

I took the above bottle to work to let people taste it and I think it went down well.

You may have noticed that there has been no mention of the varroa count up until this point. I haven't forgot, I just didn't have time to do it until today. There were 71 mites that I counted which was over 15 days. Below is the report from Beebase. I will be treating them ready for winter on my next inspection even though the count is still low as it's increasing at a alarming rate.

Average Daily Mite Fall = 4.7 varroa mites
Estimated number of adult varroa mites in the colony = 190
Treatment is recommended in about 9 month(s) time (counting from day of first monitoring).

Beehive Number 2

Carrying on from my last post which mentioned the reason why I have fallen behind with my blog. This post is just to mention that I have got a new Beehive and have started building it already. I won't post any pictures yet as it isn't finished but will do when I have made a super so it can be shown as a complete hive. At the moment I have finished making the stand, the brood box and the roof. This hive has been bought from a different place to my first hive and is made of ply rather than cedar; this means it doesn't have the same weather resistance so I will need to treat the wood against rot. The site I got it from is www.fragile-planet.co.uk and I will go into more details of the hive as I finish building it.

Apiary inspection 02/08/2011

This inspection both me and Steph went as my sister was babysitting. As Steph was a little more hands on with this inspection I'm letting her write the bulk of this post. I will be back at the end with the varroa count.

There's a change in author this week! I am very scared of bees, but I am facing my fear. Slowly, I am getting a little braver. I started off near to the closed hive without a suit, but standing very close to the apiary door so I could make a quick getaway should I panic. Next, I put my suit on and went right into the apiary while the hive was open, and Morley did the full inspection. And this time with a suit on I actually held a couple of frames! The rest of the time I play role of paparazzi to the bees. Apparently I'm doing a full inspection (under supervision) next time we can get a babysitter... So this is to prove that I listen to my other half and pay attention when he talks about his buzzing girls (and few boys)!

The roof of the hive and the two supers were removed to expose the Queen excluder, which can be seen above. The bees can be seen building foundation in the wrong place, and most of this was removed.

The first frame in the brood chamber to be examined; the damaged area is where the dummy board had stuck to the stores, and it looks like the bees set to repairing the damage immediately. There are capped stores to be seen at the top of the frame.

Me, inspecting a frame. It was heavy and covered in bees, and also had many cells of larva. It was the first time I'd been able to clearly see the babies. 

Me, relieved that I did it! It wasn't as bad as I expected. In fact it felt safer to hold the frame than stand next to the open hive with individuals buzzing around my head!

Handing over to the expert for the really busy centre frames. Next time...

A busy centre frame; Queen Beeatrix is in the middle to the left.

Me again! This time checking out a super frame. No problem after doing the one absolutley covered in bees before!

A super frame, almost fully capped, full of honey. It was extremely heavy! Thanks ladies :-) Can't wait to sample it!

 And now for the technical bit...

Thanks for that Steph. Also mention that I added a wasp trap to the allotment; this is basically a large jam jar with some diluted jam in, then a wasp size hole in the lid. Apparently this will trap lots of wasps without harming the bees. I'll try to get a photo of it for next time.

 When we got home I got onto counting the varroa mites within the debris. I found 21 mites which is 7 more than last week, however I am still not worried as the estimated amount in the hive is still well below the danger level. Also I have not seen any sign of varroa related disease.

Average Daily Mite Fall = 3.0 varroa mites
Estimated number of adult varroa mites in the colony = 120
Treatment is recommended in about 9 month(s) time (counting from day of first monitoring).

Apiary inspection 26/07/2011

Over the last couple of weeks I got an email from Wakefield and Pontefract Beekeepers telling me that there was a potential new Beekeeper in the village I live in. They passed me his contact details and today we arranged to meet up so I could show him my Bees. He had already been to see another apiary in the village, but the other apiary had several more hives than mine, I believe he said around 15 hives all together!

At around 3PM I met up with him and we headed up to the apiary together. Upon arrival we suited up and lit the smoker then headed into the apiary. The first job I did was remove the varroa board and scrape the contents into a box so I could do a varroa count later on. After that I handed the camera over to him and asked if he would take photos as I went. 

First I took the roof off

Next I removed the super and put it to one side exposing the Queen excluder

Then the Queen excluder was removed, making sure the Queen wasn't on the underside

I then removed the plastic dummy board

The first frame with capped stores

The capped cells in this one are worker brood

Queen Beeatrix with her entourage 

Me and a Bee inspecting a frame

Holding the hive tool so it's at hand when needed

I tried to remove as much of the excess comb on the top of the frames

A frame from the supers

Capped honey stores

Looking into a super

After we had checked all the frames in both the supers and the brood chamber I added another super so there are now 2 supers on the hive; this gives the Bees plenty more room to store honey as there is a good honey flow on at the moment.

When I had dropped my visitor off I returned home and poured the contents from the varroa floor onto a sheet of white paper and counted the mites on there. I counted 14 mites and then using the calculator on the Beebase website I got the following information:

Average Daily Mite Fall = 2.0 varroa mites
Estimated number of adult varroa mites in the colony = 80
Treatment is recommended in about 2 month(s) time (counting from day of first monitoring).

Varroa mites