Hi there everyone

[gwizzie]

Well went to check on the bees today as it is such a lovely day 14 deg and a lot of the bees were out flying but hive 2 was going mad collecting pollen. I checked on the other hives BUT not the wooden ones as they don't seem to be doing that well as yet so I won't open them yet.
Here is a wee video of how the 3 paradise bee box hives are doing and to be honest they are far stronger in size than to wooden ones so its polly for me now all the way....

hope you enjoy the video

[alancooper]

What's the whitish pollen quizzie? I have it also and have identified it a laurel - got any near to you?

[gwizzie]

What's the whitish pollen quizzie? I have it also and have identified it a laurel - got any near to you?

Hi Alan, whitish pollen ? not sure were you seen that! the pollen taken in in the video was yellow and some orange this is coming from the gorse that has just started to flower in the area.

[alancooper]

Well - at least there were no pink elephants I guess I should beware of colour reproduction from cameras and computer screens.

[madasafish]

Well - at least there were no pink elephants I guess I should beware of colour reproduction from cameras and computer screens.

Looks white to me. Blame the camera...

[busybeephilip]

Well went to check on the bees today as it is such a lovely day 14 deg and a lot of the bees were out flying but hive 2 was going mad collecting pollen. I checked on the other hives BUT not the wooden ones as they don't seem to be doing that well as yet so I won't open them yet.

Hi Gwizze...must say your video with poly hives is very impressive - no problems there at all. Would have liked to see how the wooden boxes compared, i also notice that you appear to be using non native bees, perhaps buckfast. Given that buckfast do build up very fast, and eat a lot of stores early in the year this does demonstrate the advantage of having strong hives ready for the early flow in May

[gwizzie]

Looks white to me. Blame the camera...

Nothing wrong with the camera, must be you computer screen lol

[gwizzie]

Hi Gwizze...must say your video with poly hives is very impressive - no problems there at all. Would have liked to see how the wooden boxes compared, i also notice that you appear to be using non native bees, perhaps buckfast. Given that buckfast do build up very fast, and eat a lot of stores early in the year this does demonstrate the advantage of having strong hives ready for the early flow in May

Hi thanks for your kind comments.
I will try and get a look into the wooden hives this week if I can and do a video to show how they are doing so you can see them compared to the polly hives. The bees you see in the first part of the video are poss buckfast ? but the other in the video are definitely not they are poss carniola cross ? (just a guess)

[gwizzie]

Well decided today to try and get the apiary ready for moving in the bees, I had some help today from a very good friend as you can see in the picture. We were there for nearly 3hrs sorting out the weeds ect etc, we also had a very large area in the back of the apiary that sloped up very steeply that had to be dug down to make it level but its all done now and all the dips and holes filled in .

from this
IMG_0339.jpg


to this
IMG_0382.jpg

Just have to get the paving slabs in and leveled off for putting the stands on and then move the bees into their new home

[gwizzie]

Hi everyone, here is a small update of my new apiary. I moved the bees 2 days ago using a method of covering the entrance of the hive with some broom stems so that the bees would have to reorient them selfs to the hive, as had been told that you could not move a hive more than a few inches or I would have to move them at least 3 miles for a few days them move them back again..... BUT not according to a video I watched SO I thought ok we will give it a bash and try it AND it works!! all hives that were moved were moved between 10ft and 30ft to were they are now...

Taken today,