Starting BeeKeeping

Second treatment

2011-09-17T17:06:00.002+01:00

Had a look at the colonies today, the first colony had no varroa drop so did not put cond sachet on. Gave them a couple of frames of stores. Added a apigaurd sachet to the other four colonies, The monitoring floor on the fifth colony had a lot of varroa on. Colonies 3 & 5 were the largest colonies over summer, 5 is on 2 brood boxes and has enough stores, numer 3 is light, both were lively.
I could not see any brood in the nuc but saw the queen (looking good), there was virtually no brood in any of the colonies, presume it's the time of year but it seems earky. It means the bees alive now will bring it on in spring.

Varroa treatment

2011-09-03T14:43:00.001+01:00

All main hive now treated. Small nuc on 3 frames not treated, will try to get it through winter. Will look at colont stores after apigaurd treatment but expect they have plenty.

Extraction

2011-08-26T16:31:00.002+01:00

I took all supers off earlier this week and had 4 supers with sealed honey, extracted yesterday and it loks around 70 pound. Would have been a lot more if I had not have had 2 colonies on 2 brood boxes. The supers with sealed stores were stacked outside but bees kept finding holes and started to rob. So yesterday I placed on top of crown boards onto the colonies for cleaning. I have one more colony to consolidate onto a single brood box, that will leave me with 20 brood frames of stores which will go into the colonies as there is room.
When the supers are clean I need to remove and start varroa treatment.

Heavy Mistake

2011-07-21T20:42:00.002+01:00

I changed the queens by adding a second brood box above paper. I consolidated one colony into one box after a few days. The other was left on two brood, it's now full of brood and stores, and too heavy to lift off. The fifth colony was very strong so I put another brood onto that. A brood box full of stores is too heavy to move.
I MUST NOT DO IT AGAIN. Going to leave for 5 wekks now, when we come back they should be ready to take honey off.

Good weather

2011-06-26T17:31:00.002+01:00

At last the weather has turned nice 27degrees outside and sunny. The lime tree at the side of the house was buzzing this morning. The one in the middle of lawn has yet to blossom. Bees very busy.

Re united

2011-06-19T17:05:00.002+01:00

I let John have my original queen from the colony I purchased at Lincoln yesterday. I then placed the frames from the strongest nuc into a brood box on it's same location. At 7pm all the bees had found their way into their new box so I sealed the entrance took down to colony 4, put some pin holed newspaper between and left them to unite. This morning the bees in the colony were not running all around the enteance so I presume they have found their new queen. There was also a couple of dozen bees flying around their old location, not sure how you can stop that?
I'll check the colony soon and try to put back into one brood box, then I'll get myself organised to do the same with my next oldest queen (green).

Failed Nuc

2011-06-16T17:53:00.002+01:00

Removed frames from failed Nuc tonight, they have been declining since they were made. There was no queen and the workers were laying (see photo). I will leave the nuc box there to see if the bees disperse now there are no stores there.

June 2011

2011-06-11T20:04:00.002+01:00

Although the weather has been cold since the nuc were made 4 out of 5 seem to be laying. Just need to confirm it's worker brood.

Cool and wet

2011-05-14T17:29:00.002+01:00

Weather turned cooler at the moment, bees are flying from all the newly created nucs but the ones with their enterance facing the sun show most activity. Photo is the left overs from the QC's.

Splits

2011-05-11T21:46:00.000+01:00

Me and John took 5 splits from hive 3 tonight, QC should hatch tomorrow, need to leave for a couple of weeks.

Bees Queenless

2011-05-03T22:04:00.001+01:00

more photos

2011-05-03T22:00:00.000+01:00

Queen rearing

2011-05-03T21:46:00.004+01:00

I made the strongest colony (number 3) queenless, the bees were running all around the entrance until they were queen right. I then cut the (3 day old eggs/larva) comb and pinned to the bars as shown, placed into hive. Photos are of + 1 day and + 2 day. Made queen right after 1 day. Many QC are drawn touching each other so I destroyed the larva in the adjoining cells, should have around 8 QC for my disposal.

Start Queens

2011-04-28T22:23:00.002+01:00

Comb was placed in with my original queen yesterday. The image was taken today and shows eggs. Will make my large colony queenless at the weekend and introduce these eggs.

More Space

2011-04-23T19:11:00.002+01:00

Put supers on 3 of the 4 hives, left excluders off to try to encourage bees to move up. Doug and john helped to find the queen in third colony. I'll put some empty comb in with original queen for eggs later this week, getting ready for nuc making. NIck found this hornet up at Longsdon!

Varroa

2011-03-26T17:38:00.001Z

After 2 days I could only find one Varroa from colony 2. It's a good sign or could mean all varroa are in the brood cells breeding!

Still warm

2011-03-24T18:38:00.001Z

Removed old Apiguard trays, fondant and checked for evidence of queen, put some syrup on each hive.

Warm wheather

2011-03-19T16:41:00.003Z

13 degrees, sunny, bees flying. All colonies bringing in pollen, need to do the experiment mentioned in the previous post a little earlier next year. Removed the empty super from under the colonies, cleaned floors (about a cup of dead bees from all), placed monitoring boards in. All colonies seem faily heavy.

Pollen

2011-03-17T20:18:00.002Z

At the apiary all colonies were bringing in pollen at the weekend, mine were not. I've put monitoring boards into 2 of the 4 to see if colony warmth or local flowers determine weather bees fetch pollen.

Checking stores

2011-03-06T20:15:00.001Z

I weighed colonies today, but forgot and took roofs off. From left to right 21,19, 21,20. Which means with roofs they would weigh more, plenty of stores.

Fondant Goes On

2011-02-05T16:08:00.002Z

Yes I made up some bags with around 500 grammes of fondant, cut a small hole in, and placed ontop of the crown board, The small colony was dead, second year on the row I've lost the small one, must do something different!

Not Freezing

2011-01-08T15:57:00.002Z

Quite nice this afternoon reaching the dizzy heights of 3.2 dregrees.
I took monitoring boards out of the 4 large colonies but will put back if the daytime temperatures sink well below zero. One bee was seen exiting a colony and flew off. Small colony felt light when efted, but it is small!

Harsh Winter

2010-12-22T12:17:00.002Z

The weather did go milder for a week, I took the monitoring boards out, but then went cold again (minus double figures, freezing during the days). The boards went back in. The four large colonies have liquid on their monitoring boards, it is around the edge ( not where the colony is). This may be because of how the condensation collects or any drips onto the bees are dispersed. Photo of one of the boards.

Early winter

2010-12-06T23:14:00.002Z

Placed monitoring board under the small colony last week and all other colonies today.It's been so cold, minus 12 this morning, minus 10 tonight. Weather like this for over a week!

Winter prep

2010-11-14T15:42:00.002Z

I placed an empty super under the brood box last week, and this week I have removed the monitoring floor.
I hope this will make their nest cooler which will result in no brood and less stores consumed. The colony that was created late is not very big and so I will replace the monitoring floor if it gets very cold!

even more

2010-10-10T16:49:00.002+01:00

more images

2010-10-10T16:19:00.002+01:00

Great weather

2010-10-10T16:12:00.003+01:00

This afternoon it is 20+ degrees, lots of activity and bringing in pollen at the hives, and lots of butterflies on the Michaelmas Daisy's

Still flying

2010-09-28T18:08:00.001+01:00

Still bringing pollen in today

Cooler

2010-09-18T16:01:00.003+01:00

Compared with last year the Varroa drop is quite low, at most 20 per day. So I have decided not to give a second treatment to any of the colonies.
THe first colony was very low on bees, which does not look good for winter. I will need to give it some insulation in deep winter. I wonder if the Apiguard has made some abscond?
I checked to find only a tiny area of brood, I wonder if the Apiguard has stopped her laying.
THe first and forth had not taken down any more feed so I removed the feeders and gave the syrup to the others.

Apiguard 2

2010-09-12T18:28:00.002+01:00

The drop over this week has not been very high so decided the crown board may have been limiting the spread, sealing against the foil sachets. I turned the sachets over which will give colony high exposure. Today there was a high drp from all hives.
On the colonies I did look into there seems a lot of stores close to the brood, don't think I will feed for a while, so far they have had 30Kg between them

Apiguard

2010-09-03T18:13:00.001+01:00

I have put a Apiguard sachet on every colony this afternoon, if some of the colonies still have low drop I may not use a second sachet.

Pollen

2010-08-31T22:47:00.002+01:00

Honey

2010-08-25T21:47:00.003+01:00

Extracted today, loaned spinner again. Got 12kg this year only 5kg last. Very messy, need a better way to drain cappings (they would not spin in mesh bag as they touched side), the honey would not pass through the fine strainer.

Start weighing

2010-08-22T15:50:00.003+01:00

The roofs and ekes are different weights.
Estimating each hive, the following are the weights to deduct to work out stores in colony. THese include roofs and ekes if they have them.
1 - 17.36kg
2 - 16.8kg
3 - 17.3kg
4 - 19.54kg
5 - 22.68kg
The estimatd stores are on the colony spreadsheets.

Artificial

2010-07-17T17:37:00.002+01:00

The second colony had produced QC just over a week ago, so left queen in new box with 3 frames of comb and the rest starter strips, plus supers (artificial swarm). All the brood and qc's moved to differnt position. THe swarm have built new comb on 5 frames very quick, looking good.

Another Nuc

2010-06-24T20:50:00.004+01:00

Made another split tonight, 3 frames with brood on, two QC, two frames of stores and space. Left my original colony with 8 frames and QC.
Shown is my first analysis of my original colony, 30 wings.

Morphometre

2010-06-21T20:34:00.003+01:00

There were open QC on 2 frames on Saturday so need to make up the nucs no later than next Saturday, don't know wether to do 2 or 3 yet.. Every time I touch the queenless colony the bees race out, very lively! Collected around 30 bees from it tonight to anylise their wings, they were very noisy as they entered the freezer.

Fighting

2010-06-16T20:49:00.002+01:00

Opened my new nuc tonight as I wont be able to tomorrow. Shook out the last failed nuc and all the bees tryed to enter the new nuc, and they fought! Need to find a better way to empty a failed nuc, hope my original queen is OK.

Try Again

2010-06-15T20:15:00.004+01:00

Took my original queen (white) from my main hive with 2 frames with brood, 2 frames with stores and pollen, 1 empty comb. Will seal for 2 days and then place where my last failed nuc is (position 4), where it can pick up returning bees. Bees were robbing empty hives tonight, should have been more careful! The original hive is strong and will now make a emergency queen, if there are spare cells I may try another nuc from the other hive. There should be a queen cell capped in 5/7 days and an emerging queen in 12/14 days.

bad news

2010-06-13T20:51:00.002+01:00

Checked the nucs today, they all seem to have failed. One QC has died and in the other nuc brood is hatching small, black and wet looking, I think the flying bees have returned to their original colony and the brood has chilled. Back to the drawing board.

New Splits

2010-06-06T22:06:00.002+01:00

Checked the 3 QC on one frame today, one had emerged. So created 2 nucs with a frame of mainly sealed brood, 2 frames with pollen and stores and a QC. The emerged queen may have been on the remaining frames, so left in the brood box and placed in the following pattern on the QC raising colony.
Original colony in brood box,
Queen excluder
2 supers.
Queen excluder.
crown board with side opening and bee proof mesh over holes
Queen cell raising brood box.
This would allow the new queen to mate and start laying in the top brood box and making a 2 queen colony.
I'm sure the nuc created two weeks ago is queenless, so if I get the chance I will place a queen cell with it, also because I don't know if the emerged queen is still with the top box I would give another QC.

Having a drink

2010-05-30T17:57:00.004+01:00

Queen Check

2010-05-30T17:08:00.002+01:00

Queen cells still uncapped today and lava don't look too big, I think it's 8 days after capping!

Nuc with John's QC, both cells are empty, just had a quick peek and left.

Queen rearing`

2010-05-28T20:23:00.002+01:00

Made original hive queenless 4 days ago, gave frame with young lave a day later. Today reunited colony, 4/5 QC which appear small but are uncapped. need to check in a few days

New nuc

2010-05-23T21:20:00.002+01:00

Placed johns QC in on Friday night, was going to leave them sealed for 5 days somewhere cool but yesterday the were buzzing so much I moved them to bottom of garden and opened. Weather has been very hot, late twenties

First Q cells

2010-05-20T19:02:00.002+01:00

John phoned today, 7 QC, and he offered me one. Made a small nuc tonight from the middle one,
one frame with sealed brood with a frame with stores on either side. The warm way, shook a few more bees in, sealed them up and placed somewhere cool ( the weather at the moment is very hot, 20+) put a feeder on.

TReating varroa

2010-05-16T21:01:00.001+01:00

Turned over the Apigaurd to expose more thymol to the brood yesterday, big drop today. MOved last brood above excluder yesterday ready for Queen rearing.

Cold weather

2010-05-11T18:45:00.002+01:00

Even though weather is poor and day temp has not reached 10 degrees today the Apiguard is causing big mite fall. Need to get ready for queen production and nucs.

Another check

2010-05-04T20:19:00.002+01:00

Right colony is a lot bigger than left, both a lot slower build up compared to last year.
There were a few varroa on monitoring boards so will now check over a week. New comb seems very yellow!
I am going to turn colonies so all will get morning sun and I can still access monitoring boards.

Quick check

2010-04-24T17:32:00.002+01:00

Weather still lovely, frost first thing, 15+ by afternoon. Colonies seem alright, still introducing starter frames on edge of brood. First frame of drone brood in right colony.

Quick Check

2010-04-10T17:05:00.002+01:00

Nice warm day, lots of activity. Both colonies have built around a third of a frame of new comb, removedentrance blocks. The photo is not as good as I would like but:_

Still cool

2010-04-04T17:08:00.002+01:00

Quick check, bees built negligible comb on the starter strips and only taken a little syrup down. Used Cheddleton Weather station to work out average last 7 days = 5.45 degrees. I obviously started too early, must check when things start to move.

Comb replacement

2010-03-27T17:14:00.003Z

Put frames with starter strips either side of frames with brood, mixed 4kg with 4 lts, started feeding with up and over feeders. The monitoring boards will help to keep the colony warm, maybe if the colonies appear to have plenty of stores I should replace boards earlier than I did. This would help kick start brood rearing.

Colony active

2010-03-21T18:28:00.003Z

This last week the weather has warmed up 10 degrees plus, frogspawn has arrived. Both colonies were very active today, there were a cup full of dead bees on the floor of each hive and both have plenty of stores. I have removed the empty super from under the brood, put monitoring boards in and entrance blocks in. They were both bringing in plenty of pollen, two colours?

Exact Weights

2010-03-14T16:48:00.004Z

Measuring the colonies by weighing each side is very inaccurate! (1 or 2 KG out).
So I measured all the seperate items from the deceased colony in KG.
Crown .96
Super box 3.68
Brood box 3.26
Mesh floor & block 1.4
Frame & comb, no stores, approx .25
Homemade roof 5
Bought roof 4.5
Floor, Super, Brood, frames, crown 12
There was 1.6 KG of stores still in the hive.
My estimation of 2.36 for a super was wrong, and so this winters calculations are out. If each item always weights the same my currant winter setup (floor, super, brood, frames, crown) =12Kg. I guess 10,000 bees weights around 1Kg.
Next year for a full size colony, if I take 13Kg from it's weight I will have an estimation of their stores.

First check

2010-03-06T19:07:00.002Z

THe small left colony has died. There was around 8lb of stores scaterred around the frames so I presume it was cold. The cluster was only small and only used the a single space between two frames. There was no brood and I did not see any pollen. This was my smallest colony, it had made an emergancy queen during August.
Gave the other two some fondant.

November check

2009-11-22T14:17:00.001Z

Weighted all three, without roofs and then subtracted weight of a empty super, 2.36Kg

Staying cool

2009-11-14T13:12:00.002Z

Removed the monitoring boards today, they did show all colonies are using a small area of the hive.
THis should reduce colony activity, hinder Varroa, slow down the use of their stores.

Mild October

2009-10-30T18:42:00.001Z

Lots of activity during the warm days, 15/17 degrees.
Saw a little pollen bought back to the hive on the 28th Oct.

Autumn

2009-10-18T17:07:00.000+01:00

Only one or two bees out this mornng, but they were bringing in pollen.

Winter preps

2009-10-10T17:57:00.002+01:00

I am going to leave the monitoring floors in place this winter. All colonies are on one brood and have put an empty super under them.

Finished feeding

2009-09-20T16:50:00.004+01:00

Taken feeders off now, will continue the 4 week treatment of Apiguard. The Varroa drop from my main colony was phenomenal about 500 in a week. The recently queened colony had no drop over the week but had quite a bit of chalk brood! I've fed 19 Kg of sugar to the hive but the combined weight has gone up 8Kg?

Feeding

2009-09-10T20:43:00.003+01:00

Have fed 17Kg so far

Varroa

2009-09-05T17:56:00.000+01:00

Been checking the last few days:-
First colony 51/4

Middle hive 17/4

Smallest 5/4

Dusted with icing sugar yesterday and todays count :-

First 25/1

middle 8/1

small 11/1

How long does the effect last, what will tommorrows count be?

Need to find a better way to retrieve wax from old comb!

First Honey

2009-09-03T17:07:00.000+01:00

John helped me extract my first honey today, 6 frames (2 of them not full).
Finished with around 5Kg, put empties on hives to clean.

Back home

2009-09-02T22:18:00.000+01:00

Had a check on the colonies after our five week break today. They were all OK so John B has done a very good job Bee Sitting.
The Colony which had lost it's queen had 3 frames of bees and lava.
The other colony I started had 5 frames of bees.
And my first colony has 8 frames of bees, I took the supers off today they have 6 frames of honey.
Will feed all colonies with strong 2:1 syrup, the bee were very well behaved today.
Weighed first colony = 19Kg including floor, crown, brood box, bees, stores

Prepare for Hols

2009-07-22T20:13:00.000+01:00

Last night I checked the monitoring boards. The main colony had 5 over 3 days, the queen right nuc had 0/3, and the queenless nuc had 2/3. I thing the queenless nuc was being robbed so have sealed for a few days and going to put a robbing screen in front of the entrace.
The lime trees seem to bloom for two weeks, starting the begining of July.

Queen rearing

2009-07-19T08:41:00.000+01:00

Yesterday checked the colony which the queen appeared to fly from and they had open QC, the worst feared. So gave some syrup and will let them get on with it. May be too late for them to build up for winter! The QC should be hatching on 26th July?
Put Monitoring floors in all colonies, check in a day or two.

Longsdon apiary

2009-07-15T22:31:00.001+01:00

Moves quick

2009-07-15T21:55:00.000+01:00

Found 1 queen on sunday and marked green.
Mike gave me a hand tonight, we found the unmarked queen, got a photo and then we think the queen flew off. Hope she ends up back home!

Hooray

2009-07-10T18:30:00.000+01:00

Quick check tonight and found both nucs with 2 frames with lave and sealed.
The tough task of finding and marking the queen now!
The main colony has a little capped honey in the super.

colony checks

2009-07-04T19:44:00.000+01:00

John gave me a hand today to check my starter colonies for eggs and the main colony for space or queen cells. We did not see a queen or eggs in either small colonies but the main colony looks good. Need to keep feeding and checking small Colonies. Pics of lime trees.

Lime trees

2009-06-30T21:34:00.000+01:00

The lime tree next to the shed was in flower today, humming with bees.
Put second super on main hive.

Silver back Bees?

2009-06-29T20:36:00.000+01:00

A few of my bees are arriving back looking like this, this bee was just leaving.

Any ideas?

Click image for larger view.

Re Shuffle

2009-06-28T17:15:00.000+01:00

The hive I moved was being robbed and only uses a small amount of syrup while it was completely closed. Moved it back to original position and left a small opening. Put a frame of brood and eggs in from main hive.
Sugared main hive, left board in for 3 hours, unable to find any varroa!

Robbed

2009-06-25T21:07:00.000+01:00

I'm fairly sure one of the nucs I made is being robbed, I am going to move it and block the entrance and put an empty box with old frames with a little stores. Hopefully this will fool them into thinking the supply has gone. When activity has stopped (hopefully a couple of days) I will replace with a reduced entrance the robbed hive.

Feeding nucs

2009-06-22T22:21:00.000+01:00

The 2 nucs are already very different, One is only slowly taking feed while the other is emptying the up and over feeder twice a day? Had my first bit of robbing today, surprised how quick it escalates.

Nucs

2009-06-15T20:40:00.000+01:00

Made two nucs up today in national hives (five frames in each), then added queen cell to each.
A day early, I've sealed entrances and will leave for two nights, and feeding syrup.
Put super on doner hive.

Rejoined Hive

2009-06-08T21:46:00.000+01:00

Checked for queen cells and checked the queenless hive had started cells. There where 4 maybe 5 QC started not sealed. Next Tuesday will be day 10.

Queen Prep

2009-06-06T21:05:00.000+01:00

Put queen to one side tea time, then tried to graft at 7:30pm.

Would find it easier to graft eggs rather than lave, they are covered in royal jelly and harder to see, so cut comb like apiary did. Need to work out how many days now.

Must check Monday maybe Tuesday and destroy any early sealed queen cells. That would mean nucs need to receive cells on a week Tuesday.

Getting Ready

2009-06-03T21:58:00.000+01:00

Moved all the brood above excluder last Saterday, new comb with queen in bottom box and fed with 3 frames of stores. Prepared queen starter cells ready for grafting.
Reclaimed the wax from 4 frames of old comb at the weekend, very messy!

2009-05-21T21:00:00.000+01:00

Managed to go through the colony today (13 days since last), didn't find any queen cells, colony very active. Moved 3 brood above excluder and replaced with 3 frames with starter strips.

Nicki's holding the frame with the bees stringing. Queen on photo which is cloudy.

Still feeding syrup ! Will be 10 days before next inspection.

weather turned wet and cooler

2009-05-18T21:29:00.000+01:00

A lot of rain these last 3 days, 8 days since we looked inside and we are going away for a bit soon.

The hive is situated on some slabs and some of the bees don't make it home( see photo), so I've given them a landing strip tonight to see if that helps. Is this normal?

I think the other photo is of some chalk brood that has been cleaned out?

One Varroa drop over one day.

few more photos

2009-05-10T17:31:00.000+01:00

Queen Marked

2009-05-10T17:15:00.000+01:00

Today 5 members from the local group came round to see my Apiary. Nick spotted the queen and held her while I dapped a mark of white paint on her - thanks. The queen is in the bottom box with all frames holding comb made on starter strips (7 frames of brood), one frame has been drawn for drone brood. The top box has 6 old frames which have brood on. I will be able to start to remove some from next week. Need to give some more syrup to stimulate growth.

An enjoyable meet.

Feed Old Stores

2009-05-07T17:51:00.000+01:00

Checked and found syrup finished, have scratched open 2 frames of stores which are on old comb and placed in the eke where the feeder was. Need to decide how I will recover old comb wax?

Local Beekeepers Group

2009-04-25T16:32:00.000+01:00

Got a few photos this morn at the groups apiary, I think I have marked a drone last week not the queen! One photo shows a marked queen and another shows lava at different stages.

Mine need more syrup now.

Another hot, sunny day

2009-04-19T20:58:00.000+01:00

Lots of bees active today, topped the feeder up (2Lts + 2Kg) and checked the hole in the crown board was across the frames.

Post Stoneleigh

2009-04-18T18:46:00.000+01:00

Put second brood box on this afternoon with old frames of stores (3) and frames with starter strips (8).
Put a new up and over feeder on instead of the contact feeder but have no syrup so need to fill feeder tomorrow.
Bees seem nice and docile, Nicki helped

Fast Comb

2009-04-18T00:00:00.000+01:00

I quickly checked if the feeder was empty today, and it was.
Had a quick peek at the frames with starter strips, surprised to see the comb nearly touching the bottom and the sides of the frame, 4 days to build 2 frames of comb.
Found one varroa today.
Stoneleigh tomorrow

Plan of action

2009-04-13T18:01:00.000+01:00

I have decided I need to put another brood box on top to give them more space and allow me to make a split later. I am going to only add frames with strips of wax which will start my move towards smaller cells. So today I added 2 frames either side of the brood and fed with 2+2 of syrup. I took out most of the pollen from the first frame I removed and fed back to them.
Lighting the smoker needs a better technique. Stoneleigh next weekend, need to pick up a few things.
I put our remote temperature sensor in the eke with the feeder, the first night it dropped to 12.4 so I put some insulation around. since then the lowest temp has been 16 and on a hot sunny day 30. the varroa monitoring board is left in but they have their entrance unblocked.

Check

2009-04-11T16:52:00.000+01:00

I went through today, there was 5 frames of brood and I think I saw the queen and she was unmarked. They have half drawn out the foundation on one side, that I put in earlier in the week. They have finished the syrup.
I need to decide how I am going to give them more space, maybe a second brood box with foundation or starter strips ( if I want them to start to regress), and give them more food. Still have not found any Varroa on the under mesh board.

Photo

2009-04-08T16:30:00.001+01:00

First check

2009-04-07T17:59:00.000+01:00

I had not checked through the hive when I first got it, and so when the sun was shinning today I got prepared and looked through.
First I noticed the feeder empty, 1KG sugar plus 1KG water in two days.
I moved from the back where there were less bees towards the front.
the first half of the colony was space and open and capped stores with more stores on the frames as a got to the middle.
The next four frames had what I think was sealed brood surrounded by stores, the sealed brood had darker capping, I did see a few white lava but did not notice a lot.
I had noticed as I moved along the frames that they were not evenly spaced and the last frame was tight against the hive, when I pulled it out it was all black, hard and horrible on that trapped side, the good side was mainly pollen.
For better or worse I decided to remove, and replace with foundation. After I finished I looked at the frame that I had taken out, I think it is old uncapped stores, I wonder how long it has to be in the hive to go like that?
For my first time I thought all went well, next time I must be more observant for eggs and lava, will put more syrup on tomorrow. The bees seemed fairly calm considering! Surprised again today, could see no Varroa on the board.
Things to do:-
Feed
Monitor varroa
Check for eggs & queen
Get some wood shavings
Buy more sugar
find out about removed pollen frames

Monitoring Varroa

2009-04-06T20:12:00.000+01:00

Didn't find any on the drop board today, will look again tomorrow!

2009-04-05T21:15:00.000+01:00

Bee Record Card Bee Record Card dmagnier

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Non-fiction credit card

sellers description

2009-04-05T18:00:00.000+01:00

The auction descriped the colony as having 5 frames with brood and treated with oxalic in December

2009-04-05T15:41:00.000+01:00

The hive I bought had a solid floor and crown board and for travelling I had lifted the crown slightly with a thin twigs before securing.
At home around 5pm, I opened the entrance and took the twigs out (because there was a lot of buzzing coming from the hive and I hoped they would not overheat).
The night temp was close to a frost so at 9am there were no signs of the bees, but 11am saw a lot flying.
I didn't want to disturb them too much after their ordeal but I did want to put them on to a screen floor and feed them.
I had made some syrup the night before (1kg sugar, 1kg water, 1teaspoon lemon juice, 20 min boil).
12am I suited up and moved them onto the new base, weighed the colony, tipped the feeder upside down, placed on crown, covered with my new brood box (new supers are not deep enough) then placed the roof back on.
There was a lot of action from the bees but within an hour there were lots of bees arriving back with pollen on their legsThe colony weighed 21.8KG, this seems like I have had a good deal and it seems like a stong colony but my next concern will be , when will I have to add a super?

Lincoln Auction

2009-04-05T15:01:00.000+01:00

At the auction there 72 colonies lined up in the field, all in Nationals except two.
Tere was also a lot of old kit for sale.
At 1pm the actioneer moved outside and onto the hives.
The people selling the hives gave a short description of their bees and treatments and then the bidding started.
They started selling for £180, £200, etc.
Half way through selling the hives the price started to drop.
I actuallty put my hand up a couple of times but let others win with bids around £130.
Then hive 59 ended up being mine for £110 (+5% auction fees)
I had a brief conversation with seller ( who was disapointed with the price) paid up, then got a steward to help me tie them up, lift into the boot, and then we were on our way home.