apiary news

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.

Marked queen honeybee

Marking and Clipping Queens

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