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Thread: AFB in South Aberdeenshire

  1. #21
    Senior Member Mellifera Crofter's Avatar
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    Thank you, C4U - again a wonderful afternoon with you, and we were so lucky to have had a brief spell, but long enough for our visit, in-between the downpours. What a lovely spot for the apiary!
    Kitta

    C4U-2.jpg Mating nucs.jpg
    Last edited by Mellifera Crofter; 26-06-2016 at 09:21 AM.

  2. #22
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    You getting many queens mated? We had a great spell of weather last week of May and first week of June where it was near impossible to go wrong. last two weeks have been poor weather wise with very few queens flying and mating.

  3. #23
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    Same here Jon, early batches have all got mated fine with nary a hitch, more recent batches hanging around waiting for fine shagging weather.

  4. #24

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    I think the funny old spring we had has played a part here. We don't start too early as the first run of queens can be a bit doubtful quality wise (similarly we stop a lot earlier than some of you). We had the cold east winds for much of the spring period that kept temps low so actually it was our early lots that were slow, then in the hot spell we had some stability issues with the smaller units (apideas etc). Since then it seems to have been OK....and we have literally in the hundreds of new laying queens to harvest. Noticed last night when having a snoop into some of her mating boxes that right up to box 511 (last one in the first mating yard) that the carnica queen in there, established on 13th June, is laying full tilt already....and checks back through several others and most re now with laying queens. Suspect this happened early last week after we endured 7 days of rain. The ones that had the first run of queens in them now have their second laying queen ready for harvest.

    So while it got worse for the west it seems to have become better for the east. Every year is different.

  5. #25
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I use Apideas and a few nucs for mating queens.
    No problems with Apideas this year. I think I have had 2 abscond out of 170 set out so far.
    Overfilling or exposed to direct sunlight are the most common causes of absconding.
    The most recent queens to start laying were also from a batch set up on 13th June.

  6. #26

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    They are almost all in shaded locations, from fairly solid shade to dappled shade. Yes, full sunlight makes them too hot and out they go. They are not too full. The bees in an Apidea or SwiBine generally cover almost 2 frames after establishment, its just a yogurt tub of bees.

    I did not quantify how many 'some issues' actually was...it will be under 20 from 500, and they are the same stands as had the issue last year. Apart from one batch that did not like it being put out in the hottest weather there are few problems this year......and in most cases they did not abscond by much....they were to be found in clusters hanging underneath other nearby boxes.

  7. #27
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Could do with a day or two of sunshine now as I have a lot of virgin queens which need to fly and mate backed up in Apideas.

  8. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    Could do with a day or two of sunshine now as I have a lot of virgin queens which need to fly and mate backed up in Apideas.
    Not really looking like a great week for it. Strong zonal westerly flow and rather cool. OK for those doing breeding in the south of England but we northerners might not get too many new matings this week. However last week had some critical windows after the rainy 7 days for s went past and Jolanta was at the second unit yesterday and there are laying queens there too from 13th to 15th. However it might be a bit deceptive as some of these had queens from the incubator that were perhaps two or even three days old before being set out in the yards.

    We really need to get a wiggle on harvesting queens to allow the next set to go into the boxes as cells rather than virgins.

    We were bashing on with full hives yesterday near Edinburgh and they are now in a serious dearth there, with no serious progress since last major visit two weeks ago. No food at all in the nest area, and plenty pollen coming in but no nectar at all. Significant amounts of soot black pollen, which I think might be from field poppies. Very few splits made in June with cells have laying queens yet, in sharp contrast to the smaller mating box units. The black bees, calm and biddable up to now, were positively carnivorous yesterday.

  9. #29
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Re the queen cells, I try and remove queens on a Monday which means that if you have grafted on a Thursday you have cells ready to emerge on a Tuesday which are perfect to go straight into the mini nucs after removal of a queen.
    Hard to manage perfect timing when the weather can intervene.

  10. #30
    Senior Member fatshark's Avatar
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    Notwithstanding the irritating subtitles "You do not want to get the queen into the sample" this shows how easy it is to do an alcohol wash to count mites ... and a seemingly well-made gadget to do it with.



    Screenwash ... nice one.

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