First queens emerged 2015

[Jon]

not good for queen rearing either

You need to know the weather 3-5 weeks ahead on the day you graft.

12 days to emergence + 7 more to be old enough to take a mating flight + 14 more and you are running out of time for the queen to mate.

The way to go is to graft twice a week to have batches coming along all the time.
If you have bad weather followed by a couple of good days the queens all mate around the same time even if they have emerged several weeks apart.

It takes a solid 3 weeks of really poor weather with no breaks to scupper things. I had queens emerge last Wednesday-Thursday and they are just about old enough to start orientation and mating flights.

[Bridget]

Lots of pollen going in and colonies are getting bigger but lighter.

I put on supers last week because I was becoming concerned about space and needed the frames tidied up and pulled out. However with the poor weather I think they will soon need feeding. I've not tried brood and a half before. Could I put the super below the brood box and stick a feeder on top and then if conditions improve take off the feeder and put a super on top?


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[Jon]

That would work ok Bridget. I am keeping a close eye on the weather as a few of mine are very light and will need fed if things do not improve within a day or two.
Colonies seem to be growing at a normal rate for the time of year but there is very little nectar coming in. Seems to be mainly pollen they are foraging.

[mbc]

With the usual caveat of making sure you're not moving the queen above the excluder when you make the move.

[mbc]

Colonies seem to be growing at a normal rate for the time of year but there is very little nectar coming in. Seems to be mainly pollen they are foraging.

Things have stalled round here with colonies going into stasis if not given a bit of a feed, most are scraping by without starving but there needs to be one or two nice afternoons of foraging before I can take my nervous hat off.
The difference between colonies being given a continuous light feed for queen rearing purposes and those fending for themselves is stark, I think with a well tuned crystal ball I might have greatly increased my chances of a big crop later on if I'd have given everything a feed.

[Jon]

I was just watching a few colonies I have at the bottom of the garden.
It's 10c and the bees are working well but 90% are bringing in pollen rather than nectar.
Loads of forage about so the real limiting factor is the weather.

[busybeephilip]

I was off work this morning and like you having a wee watchful eye on my garden bees, its been warmer than the last few days and the sun was bringing the bees out, forecast for June is good so maybe there will be no june gap this year as there is still some forage that has been held back with the cold weather

[Jon]

I saw a queen taking a short orientation flight from an apidea earlier on.
It ran up the side of the apidea like the one I recorded in the video a couple of year ago.
18 more cells with queens due to emerge tomorrow.

[busybeephilip]

Excellant ! I'm hoping the single one i have at the moment will be laying soon.

Spent a good part of the morning wiring foundation ready for all them artificial swarms that are going to be made soon when the weather gets better

[Jon]

First warm spell we get it is going to be swarm fever.
4 weeks of cool weather now.