apiary news

Weekly Inspection – mid April

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Weather: Has been very chilly at times and also very warm. Not much rain. Early season has been good for the bees.

Forage: Lots of trees in bloom, especially Blackthorn, Pear and Apple and Chesnut is just starting. Dandelion in bloom everywhere.

My inspections have been a bit sporadic and I’m only just starting to get into weekly inspections. Key activity so far has been to make sure colonies have enough space for brood and also storing nectar. I’ve also had early swarming signs and in fact manage to capture a prime swarm issuing from one of my own hives. I thought I had taken down al but 1 queen cell.

I’ve also managed to capture a swarm in my bait hive – I’d only put it up a couple days before and was surprised to find a reasonable size swarm take up residence – not my bees.

I seem to have a few bad tempered colonies, including one absolute nightmare, so plan on requeening these asap. Tried to start my queen rearing with the nicot system but the queen didn’t lay in the cups. I will try grafting over the next couple of days.

Weekly Inspection – 3rd May

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Weather: very warm with temperatures between 18ºC – 22ºC. Set to get a bit cooler

Forage: Still a lot of blooms around – Chesnut, dandelion, lilac and hawthorn.

Started to re-organise the colonies and picked up a small swarm. Some of the colonies have been expanding really quickly and have had to add more supers as well as move some of the nucs into full size hives. Starting to get ready for further splits as new queens are sure 0n 14th May.

Weekly Inspection – 27th April

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Weather: Warm with temperatures between 16ºC – 18ºC with forecast for mini heatwave in the week to come.

Forage: Still lots of blossoms out. – dandelion, Chesnut, hawthorn and cow parsley starting.

I managed to capture a swarm in the bait hive that I put out. Reasonable size with an unmarked queen – not my bees. I’d seen scout bees the day before and decided to check my own bees to make sure I hadn’t missed any queen cells, The swarm arrived with a roar around 1:00pm and were all in the hive within 45 minutes. I waited until the evening and moved them to my home apiary and stuffed some grass in the entrance to get them to re-orientate once the foragers emerge and ensure the swarm doesn’t abscond.

My efforts at grafting with the Cloake board continue with mixed results. The grafting wasn’t successful but the queen raising colony had started its own emergency cells so will be OK. But to my surprise I found that the parent colony had 4 charged queen cells, so took the queen into a nuc with 2 frames of brood and stores.

Weekly Inspection 21st April

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Weather: Been fine and higher than normal temperatures 16ºC – 18ºC but still chilly in the evenings. Some showers forecast but temperatures staying above average for April.

Forage: Still lots of blossoms out – notably hawthorn, Chesnut and dandelion.

Been a strange week for my bees. Decided to start queen rearing with Cyan as I wanted to increase the number of colonies. Started grafting on the 19th April but only got 2 cells started. Probably down to me not being careful enough but also chose a frame that was new wax and the Chinese grafting tool was going right through the wax. Did a second set of grafts the following day – not sure of the success rate yet. I am using a Cloake board and raising in the same colony as they were started in.

Found 4 charged queen cells in Blue, so did a nuc split – original queen in the nuc in the same apiary. So shook extra bees in to offset foragers returning to the parent hive.

Finally found that Indigo was queenless and 2 sealed but scrubby looking cells, so took down. Plan is to requeen with a Queen raised in Cyan,