We saw 20 C today so the bees were going at it like crazy. Because it's been so awful here we are still in the thick of dandelions and sycamore. The hawthorn has not yet opened so I am hoping that this late season might just provide another elusive hawthorn flow. It's about 8 years since I last had hawthorn honey. I can't remember what it tasted like but I do remember thinking it was good stuff.
Rosie
A week ago in cold weather mine were all over the hawthorn collecting pollen but they seem to be ignoring it now. The sycamore seems to be a big attraction here. If you stand under a tree it sounds like there is a swarm in it.
We're supposed to hit 26 on Friday, time to make up those last few frames and open up a couple of Nucs as bait hives I feel.
Don't hold back. Do it now, before you go to bed. The swarms are pinging off the trees up here.
Do you think he could hit the nail on the head at this time of night!
Mine are not making queen cells yet, touch wood. I have found a couple which looked like supersedure attempts.
I've got 3 hives made up, with frames ready to go in the back garden still, entrances open just in case. there are 4 current bait hives up on the allotment and we've had two swarms in the 30 minutes when it stopped raining a couple of weeks ago. I'm expecting it to go bonkers this week but, my one busy hive is ok at the moment. No sign of queen cells last weekend and I was using it to boost a couple of the smaller hives so, touch wood, it's not thinking about it just yet.Originally Posted by gavin
We didn't graft today in the end, other chappie decided that he didn't have any hives strong enough to donate brood or bees.
My main hive is now on three supers and looking like it's getting ready to start preparing to swarm.this week there are play cups everywhere, some with eggs, none with larvae. There's still a little bit of chalk brood, but nothing too serious, 5-6 chalkiness in 9 14x12 frames of brood. I took another frame of sealed brood out into one of the smaller colonies and replaced it with comb and removed some drone brood to check for varroa, reassuringly, very few mites on the floor and none found at all in the drone brood. Hopefully the extra space and a box of empty frames to draw out might make them think twice about wanting to swarm. I'll be checking it very carefully on Friday though.
The recipient of the donor brood is now starting to come along nicely and might even be ready for a super next week, the extra bees have allowed the queen to more than double the brood nest (over and above the donated frame). They had a single frame of brood and about 3 frames of bees, this week they're up to four frames of brood and covering 5-6 frames.
The swarm seems to be coming along nicely too, plenty of brood but no sign of the queen I marked last week, lots of eggs on the frames though so I'm assuming she's in there somewhere.
Last edited by Neils; 26-05-2012 at 05:47 PM.
Today I have mostly been rendering wax. I tidied up the apiary yesterday after our fencing escapades last week and part of that was sorting out the solar extractor. I'm not sure whats more annoying, extracting honey or cleaning up wax
I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with the stuff. Honey comb wax I'm happy to but back into hives, stuff out of the solar extractor which is mainly old brood combs less so.
Did an inspection on Friday. Had been worrying about it for day's. It was all rather dull. Saw nothing much, no queen, no queen cells just some old play caps I think, they were a bit brown, not fresh looking, and no eggs. We searched hard, the bees were well behaved but couldn't see a single egg. Some stores frames in brood box did seem a bit light but we were feeding them before the inspection. There was honey in the super, not capped, and most of the foundation in the supers was drawn out. It was busy, both supers and brood box, and all seemed quite happy so I think the sun was too bright and we were not looking properly, for the eggs. Lots of larvae. Uploading a quick pic of what we think are play caps which were on the bottom of the frame. But not big enough for a queen.
Attachment 1076
When you say you couldn't see eggs, do you mean anywhere in the hive or in the play cups?
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