apiary news

Honeybee hives drawing

Weekly Inspection 25th June

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Weather has continued to be very hot – temps around 24°C – 28°C. Cooler temperatures and more changeable conditions are forecast.

Forage: cow parsley and bramble seem to be main flowering crops. Plenty of activity and see no evidence of the June gap. Had to go through Emerald to stock Apideas and was surprised the 3rd super is over half full.

Queen rearing – started on 17th June with Cloake board and grafted larvae from Emerald and put into Denim.

19th June – removed Cloake board – bit concerned that the number of bees flying from Denim dropped off over the next few days.

24th – stocked 2 Apideas with bees from Emerald.

26th June – started to use the queen cells, only to discover swarm cells in 2 colonies I wasn’t expecting to – Flax & Honeydew. So used the queen cells in these colonies.

Split Emerald – left new colony on old site with queen cell. Moved old queen to new spot in apiary.

 

Will need to check all colonies in 4 days to see if queens have emerged as there was a lot of brace comb on the grafted frame, so not sure if the queens are viable and able to emerge.

Queen honeybee - marked & clipped

Queen Rearing Using a Cloake Board

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HComing and going

Weekly Inspection June 15th

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Weather: has been a mini heatwave with temperatures between 24°C – 28°C. No rain and forecast is for more of the same.

Forage: Pyracantha, geranium and cow parsley – elderflower is finishing. Bees very active and bringing in lots of pollen.

Decided to raise some queens using a Cloake board – started in 17th June.

17th – added 5th frame to Green as it was surplus to the queen rearing activity

Need to make up some more supers.

Looks like Indigo may be looking to produce a supersedure queen.

Queen honeybee - marked & clipped

Weekly Inspection 8th June

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Having a mini heatwave with temperatures 20°C – 24°C. Still quite a lot of forage: elderflower, globe buddleia and hawthorn.

4th June – picked another swarm, looks like a prime. Will need to check later in the week. For now, it’s in a 14 x12 nuc box with a frame feeder. Bees came out front next morning, so transferred to 14×12 brood box. Not sure if they will stay as the owner of the garden where they were collected from says they are a lot of bees still in the bush – maybe the queen was left behind?

Not had chance to inspect Indigo to check on unite

 

Marked queen honeybee

Weekly Inspection 31st May

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Weather has been great with temperatures just below 20C. Still lots of forage around – Chesnut (nearly finished), Hawthorn, Lilac, Wisteria, elderflower just starting and OSR.

25th May – Decided to add brood box and supers to Denim & Emerald as I was worried that they will run out of space.
25th May – Headley swarm – after a quick peek I can see that they are covering 4 of the 5 frames and are very active so moved into full size box.

Didn’t see a queen in the united A and C boxes so will combine with Indigo which is not expanding but has a nice sized queen.

3rd June – United Aqua with Indigo

Beekeeping smoker

Weekly Inspection 21st May

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Well the weather has finally improved with temperatures 15C – 20C and no rain. Forecast is for more of the same. Plenty of forage: Chesnut, Lilac, Broom and Hawthorn. Dandelions still around.

Apiary has expanded considerable with colony purchased , 2 swarms and a bait hive success.

Started uniting colonies as the original 4 are on the decline still and won’t survive the season. Will take a final decision of which ones to unite in the next couple of weeks. For now it looks like Cyan is on its last legs, just emerging drone brood – no queen or even a drone layer – so uniting with Aqua. Put Cyan on top and newspaper in between.

Looks like I‘ll be busy making up frames over the next week or so as I need more brood frames and some supers with fresh foundation.

Put out bait hive for second time.