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Thread: todays news

  1. #111
    Senior Member Adam's Avatar
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    Today I need to inspect a hive that swarmed yesterday and the bees came back. They did it again today. It's the ONLY one I didn't inspect last weekend but I suspect queencells in there. The queen is clipped so maybe she hasn't gone or walked back or got lost on the grass.

  2. #112
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    Spent most of the day with Roger Patterson who came to visit us at Bristol to talk bee improvement. Took a mosey up to the allotment afterwards to test a theory about swarms settling and after he'd left took a look at my colonies... Well almost.

    A nuc that wasn't entrance blocked looked a lot busier than it should have been. I knew it had a few old frames of stores in it and initially wondered if it was just being robbed out, but it was far too busy. Sure enough opening it up, it was packed to rafters with bees and also had a nice bit of drawn comb where the 5th frame should have been. They weren't there on friday so are definitely new additions to the apiary and definitely didn't come from our hives.

    As there's no brood there at the moment we decided to shook swarm them into a full hive now before they get too settled. As this is an unmarked queen my suspicion turns again to the "natural" beekeepers at the bottom of the allotment and a stroll down to eyeball their hive does suggest that the bees may be from there (plus one week ago that we got the prime swarm could well indicate a caste) so we'll be keeping a close eye on them. If it is a virgin queen I wonder whether OA is a good idea and whether a good dose of Icing sugar might do the trick instead.

    Mine continue to labour on. I do at least have one queenright colony which is the first swarm that arrived. I gave the Drone Layer that I ran a virgin n a few weeks back a comb of eggs last week and there's a nice fat emergency queen cell on it so it looks like she didn't make it. The other colony is also still queen less so now have a frame of BAS (brood all stages) to play with to hopefully give me some indication as to what they're up to.

    Despite only having drawn half the box, I've stuck a super on the swarm as they're pcking the frames with stores and brood so hopefully the last box of drawn super comb I have will give them a little more room to pack away some honey while they draw out the brood box.

  3. #113
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    How is the old codger?!

    I have a few swarm boxes out but there doesn't seem to be much interest in them yet.

  4. #114
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Roger 'Ley Line' Patterson to his friends.
    Could be the West Sussex answer to Rudolf Steiner.
    Did you mention those bizarre articles in the bbka magazine?
    Seems like a perfect opportunity.

    I believe he is coming over to NI shortly to speak to the Judean people's front Institute of Northern Ireland beekeepers (INIB) which is affiliated to the bbka. The deadly foe of the Ulster Beekeepers Association (UBKA) of which I am a member.
    Might tag along to do some heckling.

    Nellie, what about those natural beekeepers?
    Putting their escapees in a national brood box is like feeding meat to a vegetarian.
    Do they even know when they lose swarms? If you don't look in the long box you are probably blissfully happy to see the bees continue to fly in and out in a treatment free manner.
    Could be quite a varroa load.
    Last edited by Jon; 08-05-2011 at 09:59 PM.

  5. #115
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    He sends his regards, at least I think it can be construed as regards

    I did mention the articles, as did he. Might I put on some rose tinted specs and opine that their editor is still finding his/her feet?

    I didn't put their escapees in the Nuc, they settled there of their own accord. Did you get their article that appeared in our allotment newsletter by the way?

    As they bought the bees from the enemy last summer I'm hoping they're still relatively Varroa free, but I did dose the first swarm with Oxalic Acid. Given the timing it's not unreasonable to assume that what turned up yesterday (presumably) is a caste swarm so I'm a little wary of dosing a virgin queen with oxalic acid.

    Obviously we didn't open up the hive, but it otherwise seems to be in reasonable fettle at the moment, but it's early days yet, they picked it up in late July last year so it's not had much time to pick up a large Varroa load. As it had an observation window we might have looked at it through there and it's maybe 7-8 frames at the moment but only just has enough bees covering those frames hence suspecting that we've had two swarms off it so far. The third we think has come from elsewhere.

    Ironically, they have two bait hives out, another TBH and a Warre both of which they could have bees in now. We did consider leaving a note on the hive saying "thanks for the bees" but thought that might be rubbing it in a bit.
    Last edited by Neils; 08-05-2011 at 11:02 PM.

  6. #116
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I didn't put their escapees in the Nuc, they settled there of their own accord.
    I got the article, thanks.

    That must be the Imidacloprid disorientating them. No other explanation for a swarm setting up home in a box which is squarish rather than long.
    Why would a bee leave a top bar hive for a national unless it had taken leave of its senses, or perhaps failed to read the collected works of Phil Chandler.

  7. #117
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    Hectic weekend!
    Harvested about 70% of the frames in my supers, leaving alot of full but uncapped frames behind.
    118kg from 56 frames out of 10 colonies. Not bad at all.
    made up another 2 artificial swarms (so nine now in total), have 4 laying queens in apedias that need a home. started another 2 queenless 5 frame colonies on queen cups with three novice beekeepers in attendance (thats worth 100€/student from the Bavarian government).
    On the downside I got in lots of trouble for not taking my wife out for mothersday dinner (relocating colonies to a new beehouse) which was yesterday here in Germany... OOOPs that will cost me dear.

  8. #118
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    B....y wind,making inspections difficult and low temperatures not helping.Finaly managed to get my two remaining stocks re-hived into their new homes.Both bursting with bees and loads of stores in the B.box.Had to forgo the rape this year due to new plastic hives being such a late delivery.Colonies still got 2 supers on each ,filling up nicely with early spring flower honey-I'll have to add a third soon at this rate.I don't know the nectar sources-maybe bluebell which is very abundent this year.Sycamore is just coming into flower as well as well as horse chestnut plus all the fruit blossom.Could be an excellant apple crop this year too.Managed to lose one swarm I think.Full of Q cells - no eggs and couldn't find her majesty.Knocked down all the cells except one with a nice fat larva,closed them up and let them get on with it.Cold wet weather meant I couldn't get into them when I needed to. No Q cells in the other colonies tho'-all full of bees with side to side brood.High winds and cold wet weather not going to help with Q mating.

  9. #119
    Senior Member EmsE's Avatar
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    It looks like our apiary visit could be cancelled on Sunday because of the weather

  10. #120
    Administrator gavin's Avatar
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    I looked through the colony at the association apiary at lunchtime and did an artificial swarm on them as there were open queen cells with grubs. Once they've developed further I'll probably split that box into 3-4 nuc boxes with mature queen cells for mating. Although it was breezy the sun was out and it was warm enough.

    Then at 6 tonight I tried going through my own. Not a good idea. They were more than a little feisty although I still came away with no stings.

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