Colonies

Honeybee on thyme

Weekly Inspection – June 16th

/in /by

Visiting Thyme

Honeybee on thyme

Weather: some heavy showers, with temperatures between 16°C to 18°C. Forecast is for fine weather and temperatures to rise in the coming week.

Forage: bramble, elderflower, cow parsley, and lime.

Looks like the Bees in the river Mole apiary are bringing in some stores, but still slow in the home apiary colonies. Decided that the swarm I caught in the bait hive was queenless with no sign of a queen or eggs after two weeks. So united on the 18th with the original queen from Flax, which was in a nuc – Indigo.

Looks like the Buckfast Queens I’ve ordered will be delayed for three weeks because of bad weather so will need to reassess which colonies I re-queen and whether I still go for a split with Aqua..

 

 

Honeybee Queen cell

Weekly Inspection – 18th May

/in /by

Honeybee Queen cell

Queen cell tip thinned out by the bees to help the queen emerge

Weather: continued improvement with temperatures between 17°C to 20°C stop no showers despite being in forecast.

Forage: chestnut, green alkanet, cow parsley, Hawthorn and elderflower just starting.

Finally got to inspect the honeydew colony at the river Mole apiary site and it’s doing well. Still have three colonies that I’m raising Queens in. Will be interesting to see what emerges!

Finally starting to see the Bees bringing in nectar and starting to store some honey in the supers.

Honeybee on knotweed

Weekly inspection – 11th May

/in /by


Read more

Honeybee on May

Weekly Inspection- 3rd May

/in /by

Weather: improve slightly with temperatures averaging 15°C to 17°C. Plenty of showers and one very heavy thunderstorm.

Forage: chestnut, Hawthorn, lilac, green alkanet

The modified Snellgrove on blue hive isn’t progressing very well. May need to introduce frame of eggs to encourage queen cell building