Quick check

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Staying cool

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

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

Autumn

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

Winter preps

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

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

Have fed 17Kg so far

Varroa

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

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

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

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

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

Moves quick

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

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

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

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

Silver back Bees?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

Queen Marked

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

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

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.