HComing and going

Weekly Inspection June 15th

/in /by

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

/in /by

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

/in /by

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

/in /by

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.

Weekly Inspection 13th May

/in /by

Weather starting to improve – temperatures around15°C but still quite wet. Plenty of forage out with Chesnut, hawthorn main sources.

Inspected both sites as I wanted to get samples for the local association health clinic. Given the state of my bees I suspect that they have Nosema as they are not expanding as they should now that Spring has arrived.

No brood in 2 of the colonies which is worrying, so will give them another week before acting further.

 

Results of Health Clinic show heavy nosema in 2 of the 4 hives.

Weekly Inspection 7th May

/in /by

Weather has still been poor – cold and wet with temperatures struggling to get above 15°C. Plenty of forage around with Apple, Lilac, Dandelion & Chesnut.

I’m having a tough time with my colonies as they seem to be going queenless. The introduced queens don’t seem to have been accepted – have’t seen them and no real brood in 2 of the 3 home apiary colonies.

Will need to hope that they pick up or I get lucky and pick up a swarm.