todays news

[Neils]

Hived a whopping great big swarm today that had conveniently settled up a couple of yards away from the hive it emerged from. Hived it into a topbar hive and ended up trying to balance keeping the space small enough while they get some comb drawn and needing to give them near enough 7 frames of space just to be able to physcially accomodate them in the hive.

My own are still chugging along. i think the nature reserve bees are getting ready to try and swarm again but I was already suspecting that they might have a good dose of Carnolian going through them.

[GRIZZLY]

This must be the"year of the swarm"-my bees are producing queen cells just as fast as they can and with the alternating hot,cold and wet days making inspections difficult,the odd swarm emerges as soon as the sun comes out- usually just as I'm about to do an inspection.The main culprit tho' is the succession of strong and cold winds making chilled brood a distinct possibility if the bees are shook off the combs in the hunt for Q cells.Longer intervals between inspections due to inclement weather don't bode well for swarm control.

[chris]

It's not just beekeeper's bees.And not just Scotland with its special weather conditions. Where I live is pretty wild countryside, with no other beeks around. Any swarms i get are either feral, or descended from ancient 'kept' colonies. I've never seen so many as this year. Even the die hard ecologists are wondering what's going right.............

[OXFORDBEE]

Funny year this one. Bees are doing well but not interested in moving house. Broodnests are smaller than exected as the weather changes have meant queens being taken off lay when the weather is bad and then empty cells are filled with stores when the weather improves. Extracting deep frames and putting them back on has not helped. The queens ignore them and they get re-filled when the weather improves...

[Trog]

This must be the"year of the swarm"-my bees are producing queen cells just as fast as they can and with the alternating hot,cold and wet days making inspections difficult,the odd swarm emerges as soon as the sun comes out- usually just as I'm about to do an inspection.The main culprit tho' is the succession of strong and cold winds making chilled brood a distinct possibility if the bees are shook off the combs in the hunt for Q cells.Longer intervals between inspections due to inclement weather don't bode well for swarm control.

That's always the problem here on Mull! The last but one split I did resulted in some chilled brood because it took 3 of us 3 separate sessions to try and find the queen. We never did in the end so bodged the split and hoped for the best. A quick check last week revealed one virgin queen in one half of the split and a colony acting queenright in the other, so all may have gone well.

Because of the cold winds, I tend not to shake bees off combs unless it's vital. I move them around the comb while looking for queen cells by blowing on them. They seem to prefer that to being shaken!

Mating flights are another source of fun. A supercedure queen didn't get out on orientation flights due to wind and rain so went for it on her first flight out and ended up in a hedge with a few bees. She's now heading her own wee nuc and doing very well but her home colony have had to raise another. I'll unite if the new queen's no good.

[kevboab]

Well, my first attempt at queen rearing over past couple of weeks using Hopkins method didn't exactly go to plan. Gained two nucs but whether they come to anything, well we shall wait and see.
Plan B: spent a couple ae bob in buzzybee shop buying cups etc and grafting tool and made a frame to raise 20 queens in one sitting. So having never grafted in my life I transferred 20 larvae and upon a quick peek today it looks like at least 10 have been taken.

I must say i've impressed myself and cant believe just how simple and effortless it has been compared to finding queen, trapping for x amount of days and all the other faff that went with Hopkins method and with a much higher success rate.

Just gonna need some good weather and a spot of good luck that I can get them mated.

[lindsay s]

Because of the cold winds, I tend not to shake bees off combs unless it's vital. I move them around the comb while looking for queen cells by blowing on them. They seem to prefer that to being shaken!

I do exactly the same Trog.
Apart from last Monday cold northerly winds have been the main feature here this week. The temperature has never been above 14°c and the conditions have been bad for the bees and their keepers. I have 13 supers on my hives and I’ll be lucky if they contain more than 30lbs of honey between the lot of them. There’s plenty of white clover out at the moment and if the weather improves I might get a small honey crop before the end of summer (wishful thinking).
Last Monday was sunny, cool and still (a rare occurrence up here) so my friend Graham and I managed to inspect my entire apiary. We made up 3 five-frame nucs each containing a few nearly sealed queen cells and moved them to another apiary. This should take some pressure of the parent colonies and hopefully I’ll have new mated queens in a few weeks time if the weather is good. (The weather did I mention the weather I must stop going on about the weather)

[Jon]

So having never grafted in my life I transferred 20 larvae and upon a quick peek today it looks like at least 10 have been taken.

I must say i've impressed myself and cant believe just how simple and effortless it has been compared to finding queen, trapping for x amount of days and all the other faff that went with Hopkins method and with a much higher success rate.

That's what I keep telling people. I don't know why more beekeepers do not bite the bullet and start a few cells. It puts you in control as you graft from your best colony whenever it suits you and you don't have to make up nucs with what ever queen cells happen to appear in one of your colonies.

The grafting is straightforward but getting queens mated properly and getting them mated with the right type of drone is the real issue. That's where the apideas come into their own as you can bring your virgin queens to a mating apiary where they should encounter decent drones.

[Neils]

My swarm colony is definitely trying to supersede the queen so I've whipped her out into a Nuc. There's a flow on at the moment and they've filled a super in a week so I've slapped another on, I will get some honey this year! It's not even July but the brambles are already coming to an end

I ran out of time so couldn't get to the colony on the nature reserve which I'm convinced is going to be trying to swarm again when I open it up next and typically, I've just found that I don't have enough spare frames. I bought a load in the thornes sale and it would be fair to say that the quality of a lot of them was so bad that I had to chuck them, so I thought I had plenty of spares, but I don't.

Best laid plans and all that

[Trog]

I do exactly the same Trog.
Apart from last Monday cold northerly winds have been the main feature here this week. The temperature has never been above 14°c and the conditions have been bad for the bees and their keepers. I have 13 supers on my hives and I’ll be lucky if they contain more than 30lbs of honey between the lot of them. There’s plenty of white clover out at the moment and if the weather improves I might get a small honey crop before the end of summer (wishful thinking).
Last Monday was sunny, cool and still (a rare occurrence up here) so my friend Graham and I managed to inspect my entire apiary. We made up 3 five-frame nucs each containing a few nearly sealed queen cells and moved them to another apiary. This should take some pressure of the parent colonies and hopefully I’ll have new mated queens in a few weeks time if the weather is good. (The weather did I mention the weather I must stop going on about the weather)

Ah, yes, I have encountered the Orkney weather! Do you have to cement the hives to something solid? Still, you're doing better than I am if you have 13 supers on! Weather-wise it's been low-lying cloud most of today and serious rain forecast for tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday ....