Jon

..or have too many Apideas.

The queen rearing group got another 17 Apideas and Kieler mating nucs tonight which is timely as there are about 35 more cells due to hatch in the next week in 3 different batches. 6 of the Kielers are empty and Tim has left me instructions to fill them with the contents of his swarm box which has 6 queen cells in it. His beekeeping has got complicated as he commutes from Belfast to Amsterdam for work on a Monday and returns on Friday evenings. The other ...

Say what you like about the 12th July – and many people do around these parts – but it has the saving grace of being a public holiday in NI and the sun always shines, presumably some tryst made between Big Ian Paisley and the Devil.

It is always one of my favourite beekeeping days, due to the aforementioned balmy weather and the suspension of any pretensions with regard to completing work and meeting deadlines.

Call me an old fuddy duddy if you like, but I own neither ...

I had my first swarm of 2011 today apart from one which I may have lost from a nuc a week ago.
This one was from the colony I have at the bottom of the garden which has a brood box and 3 supers packed with bees. I put an extra super on it only yesterday but was too lazy to check the brood box and it was 11 days from the last inspection when I did notice a single queen cell which was removed.
The thing is, I clipped all my queens this year and it makes you complacent about the checks ...

.. and found 8 more queens laying.
these ones are all owned by members of the queen rearing group so it is great to see participants get a result.
I have quite a few more still to check so I reckon there will be more to come.
That's about 25 mated so far.

I put 8 cells into apideas this evening and gave two to one of the members who has a couple of queenless colonies.

I grafted 50 cells on Sunday evening and 32 were started, due to hatch next Friday ...

Just in from a real bollox tonight.

I left a nuc with one of my best queens at our new apiary site about 5 weeks ago.
It was a daughter of one of mine mated with Galtee drones.



I have been checking it regularly for stores as the weather has been so bad.
For various reasons, the last time I checked was Saturday week ago ie 12 days ago.
I took the lid off tonight and first thing I heard was piping.
...