Found a "balled" queen this morning outside a hive.I recon this was what all the excitement was about yesterday.I guess one of the virgin queens decided on a mating flight and got mixed up in the confusion and missed its hive of origine,got muggud by strange bees and killed.So could have a queenless colony somewhere.As usual the weather has turned too wet for a safe examination,so will have to postpone it for a while.
Picked up a big swarm on the edge of the apiary this afternoon. Shouldn't be one of ours as we checked them all a couple of days ago. Still, we got it, and that's what matters!
Dodged the rain to sort out a hive full of queen cells that I couldn't deal with after last weeks shenanigans and found a little swarm living in our kit stack that we rehoused into a Nuc. Made up 3 apideas from the queen cells, figure any hive that's still good natured open in the rain is worth taking queens from.
Kit stacks (the rougher the better) seem to win over carefully-placed bait hives; we had the same and picked up a pure AMM swarm that has been parent to many a nuc over the last few years since it arrived!
How are your stings, Nellie?
Sun is out, swarm central round here at the moment. Been to two swarms already today.
No new stings as yet so no idea how I'm doing on that front. Not been in the horrible hive.
Leaving shortly and will be away almost 3 weeks.
Swarm talk makes me nervous although my queens are clipped so if they hold off from starting cells for at least a week I should be ok.
I have only had one start to make swarm preparations so far this year.
Have to hope they are not all waiting until July.
Our local AMMs seem to favour July, Jon
We had a bee "bimble" today. 5-6 apiaries out of the 138 ticked off the list. In theory there weren't inspections going on. In practice, in addition to the swarms, other shenanigans ensued. I'm not sure if it's considered wise for the guy who may or may not be allerigic to bee to be putting his hands into beehives without gloves, but sometimes you just can't help yourself.
We had the new beekeeper trying to hive their bees with a duff hive that didnt fit together and the inevitable queen cell in the Nuc, inspected on Friday and given a clean bill of health by an ex bee inspector. The two minute move the hive that turned into a twenty minute manipulation and the restocking of my apideas with queen cells and much elderflower champagne consumed.
I enjoy these, swarms aside I'm not a great fan of opening up hives during them but it's always interesting to see what other people are doing with their bees. I also got a chance to get more acquainted with one of our new members, an apiarculturist by trade from Iraq.
Spammers have invaded the blog section.
But their remedies are herbal - so they are ok, ie not working for Monsanto (I'm assuming herbal organic).
Not what I want to hear!!Originally Posted by Trog
Our local AMMs seem to favour July, Jon
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