None mated yet Gav!
I put a kilo of fondant on a few last week but I extracted about 10 supers at the start of June.
Always risky to extract early but if the weather is bad through July there will be no honey crop this year.
Doubt it would make much difference, the only hive that came out of winter at full strength has more than enough food. The artificial swarms have been on syrup for two weeks. The swarm will probably last another week before it needs feeding because I took a frame of stores out of it to make up the Nuc when the weather was nice. The hive I'm going to feed tomorrow was an over wintered Nuc that almost starved in April and had just expanded up enough to warrant a super so it's now a busy hive that has little in the way of stores.
I don't think I've done anything wrong and nor have the bees for that matter. We get two days of dry followed by 5-6 days of constant rain so I'm not surprised that I'm having to feed the poor buggers.
Good luck for the weekend with this
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Despite a dire forecast we had a great day. Out side all day with the grandsons ( best place for them) building bonfires, cycling, barbecue and 5 year old spent 2 hours "butt naked", his words, crawling up and down the burn. No time to worry about bees. Who says we don't have nice weather.
Haha. What did I do in the Apiary today?
Went in my jeans with trendy hole on my leg, without smoke.
Last Sunday I gave them frame of eggs to see if they will start QC (queen was not laying for 3 weeks an. i thought there is no queen there.)
They sealed brood etc. no new fresh eggs so there is queen not mated yet though.
Problem is that I annoyed them so much that I have had them all over me... After 4 stings in my legs and one in stomach I started walking away. Killed probably 20 and been stung 4 more times... Felt them crawling up my trousers, under my veil, under my tshirt... Nightmare come true after 5 minutes i needed to come back to close the hive... They were really p.$$ed... Stung me again, i managed to close them and go to my car to kill all the remaining...
After another 5 minutes I found myself with 12 stings in total, swollen on my legs, heavy rash on arms, huge swollen belly... Quickly while I could I rushed to nearby hospital..
And I did make it - just to say to all beginners to suit up and never go to your bees in patchy trousers without smoke
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LOL
You sure the problem was the trousers? Could have been sub lethal effects of neonicotinoids making you disorientated or stupefying you in some way!
Did you drive past any fields of oil seed rape on the way to the apiary or glance at something predominantly yellow like the sun or a banana?
The smaller the dose, the greater the effect apparently. Quixotic stuff.
You are lucky to be alive. Did you get any photos?
Plenty of photos. Most obscene though so cannot be posted here
A&E was buzzing when I came over. They had adrenaline handy in case my throat closed (not needed thankfully).
I must say after being stung the worst thing was that i kept thinking "i need to go back and close them up - it will rain soon"...
Also - all bees at my parents are quite calm - i helped them with inspection without gloves and it was fine. I would not go near mine without it... That just shows you how important breeding new queens from properly selected line is...
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What's the moral of this story ?.
Don't be a slave to fashion!
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