Colonies

Honeybee on thyme

Weekly Inspection – June 16th

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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 on geranium

Weekly Inspection – 10th June

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Honeybee on geranium

Weather: fine with temperatures between 16ºC – 18ºC, cool on the evenings

Forage: bramble elder flower and cow parsley continuing

Moved swarm in bait hive to River Mole apiary  as well as old queen from Flax in 3 frame nuc.

Still nothing in any of the supers – very strange

Ordered 2 Buckfast queens as I’m not happy with how some of the colonies are performing. Will use 1 in Flax and decide whether to split Aqua or requeen Green

Honeybee on Red hot poker

Weekly Inspection – 2nd June

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Honeybee on Red hot poker

Weather: same as last week with temperatures between 15ºC – 18ºC

Forage: Bramble just b starting, elderflower, pyracantha – appear to be in June gap

Found lots of dead bees in front of 3 of the hives when I cleared the weeds. Not sure what’s happened,m could be poisoning as I checked for signs of disease didn’t see anything untoward. Some of the colonies appear to be shrinking in size – again not sure why.

Denim look to have DLW or DLQ – so united with Cyan on 5th June

6th June – captured swarm in bait hive – probably not prime judging by number of bees

Honeybee on geranium

Weekly Inspection 24th May

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Honeybee on geranium

Weather: fine with temperatures 15ºC – 20ºC.

Forage:Hawthorn, elderflower and cow parsley

Bees don’t seem to be doing very well, some colonies diminishing in size. Not bringing much nectar in, similar to reports from other beekeepers. Looks like we could be in for early June gap

Honeybees on strawberry

Initial Inspection for 2024 Season

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The early Spring weather has been very poor – lots of rain and cool temperature. Only now – mid-April have the temperatures started to get to 15°C. I decided to feed all of the colonies with Ambrosia and most took down 1Kg and 2  got through 1.5Kg.

Nearly had a swarm with Cyan which is the largest colony – 2 capped cells but queen and eggs present. If I had left it another day I think it would have tried to swarm despite queen being clipped. Lack of space likely to be the main trigger.

Needed to move the colony at my out apiary to a new position. As it was around 20m I’ve brought it back home for 3-4 weeks and will then move it back to its new position. Have moved Honeydew to the out apiary as I wanted more colonies at a 2nd site as a backup.

Given the reports of queen cells also being found by other beekeepers I have put out my bait hive which is earlier than I normally would.

Deadouts: Emerald – was a strong colony going into Winter. Seems to have petered out with only a few bees on the frames. Lots of stores left.

Blue – lots of dead bees on the floor, none on the frames. Was alive  early Spring and had taken 1/4 block of Ambrosia down.

Forage: Lots of blossom out, strawberries already flowering  and dandelion in abundance.