gavin

Here we are in June already. So what gives? The bees are booming and I have every box except one nuc with bees in now (plus a couple I've borrowed). Six to fifteen plus three Apideas if all the queens mate, although several boxes of bees will be used to requeen the less mild stocks and boost the strength for the heather. On the basis that you learn from your mistakes I've learned a lot (again) this year. The season started early with rape in flower early in April and it is still in full flower now. Many of the local fields are looking a bit threadbare but some are still bright yellow right across the tops. The sycamore was unusually early, at least some trees, and there are still trees in flower now. Andrew, local commercial beekeeper, was enthusing about the amount of sycamore coming in at some sites when I saw him on Saturday.

Yesterday I lost another cast. Hmmmnn. Shouldn't happen and this one was because I didn't shake all the bees off the frames. There were a few stubby little cells made late on the face of one frame and my common practice of touching the backs of the bees to make them run away from areas of the comb I think might harbour a cell or too has failed. I was in the apiary at the time and saw it slowly rise to high in one of the oak trees over the hives. It didn't take long to decide where it was going - about two hours - and I hope it settled in a hole in a tree or a disused building rather than someone's chimney. I may have populated a local chimney site a week or two ago! There was another cast yesterday, sitting low in a plum tree in the same spot as an earlier one. That one, from watching the dances, hadn't decided where to go and wasn't fizzing in the same way as the ones I'd groped earlier. I'll see later whether it stayed put overnight.

So, those lessons?

1. Artificial swarms. Bees are really keen to go once they put their mind to it. That queen-right split often makes queen cells quickly and can depart when they are at an early stage. I've seen this before and been puzzled why things went wrong. We should be teaching folk to go in again to the queen-right part and check for early Q cells about 3 days later, then again later. The queenless part has no queen, so can't swarm until after a cell hatches, but the queen-right part can go in a few days. Is it worse this year? Do I have swarmy stock? Dunno ... but lots of folk are saying that it is a swarmy year locally.

2. Space. Clearly I knew this but thought that my special powers would somehow intervene. The bees need space early enough to divert them from swarming. Only the one I'd double-brooded in March delayed swarming preparations although it has now caught the bug too and I'm vigorously Demareeing it to try to keep it as my cell raiser (now with grafts in the top box). Two or three empty frames left in the brood box and it is time to get more on top. None of that nadiring nonsense here, thanks! Whether it is 'natural' or not, bees enthusiastically use boxes above their heads.

3. Swarms. Yes, they do have differing degrees of fizzing and it does seem to relate the the impending activity of the swarm. I'd recommend that plunging of the hand into a swarm, though watching the dances on the surface is probably more accurate and able to be interpreted by the inexperienced.

S'pose another lesson is that there are some funny folk in beekeeping, but I think that I knew that already. And some very nice ones too!