The garden in alive with bees
Another lovely sunny day and the bees have been active. In fact it felt pretty cold to me but they were still flying. The heather was buzzing as was a piece of black tarpaulin that had collected rain water.
I agonised over what to do with the queen wasp I found in my new greenhouse. No she wasn't welcome there but I reminded myself what a good clean-up job wasps do in the garden early in the season and she wasn't "despatched", merely resited. Had it been Autumn, I might have felt differently!
Varroa counts in the garden are generally acceptable - less than one a day in hives 1, 2, 4 and 5. Hive 3 is holding at 2 a day. We will, of course, continue to monitor.
Posted by Sally on Sunday 07 March 2010 - 21:33:31 |
Round up
Thanks Hannah for helping David in a round up of the apiaries whilst I was at work. We'd have liked zero varroa but all seems controllable - at least for now. Hive 3 at Little Piece seems about the highest at 3 a day so we must continue to monitor. A few shook swarms could still be on the cards in early Spring.
David's tasks were to check varroa and weight and add some of the cappings that we'd saved from honey bottling time.
At Little Piece hives 1, 2 and 3 hefted OK for the size of colonies and there was pollen going into all the hives. Cappings were added to hive 5 which David put into an upturned rapid feeder. The bees had taken all of the fondant so this was most welcome.
At Green Lane David managed to forget the varroa count he made but we can do that again soon. He did feed cappings to each of the colonies though and the weight of hives seems OK. Plenty of bees around at Green Lane and once again, pollen is going in so all looks good there.
David felt a little unsure about hive 1 at the Rectory. This is a queen in at least her third year so we expected her to supercede at the end of the last season. The bees were very active and were guarding well but he didn't see pollen so we'll have to see with that one and hope it's just a new queen slow to get going. They certainly have plenty of stores though. Hives 2 and 3 seem in good shape with lots of activity and pollen seen.
Still the Hill and the Garden to check ...
Posted by Sally on Friday 05 March 2010 - 23:22:14 |
The sun is shining
The bees in the garden are really active in the warm sun today. Not the mad "let's get out there because it's our only chance" activity of some recent sunny periods, but hard at work or sunning themselves.They are bringing in lots of pollen now too. They are definitely on the crocuses and a few are unmistakeably visiting the snowdrops. The winter/spring heathers are really buzzing as is the sweet box (sarcococca confusa) both of which are being harvested for pollen and nectar I suspect.
Posted by David on Monday 01 March 2010 - 13:05:23 |
A Plan
After today's visit, the plan for whenever we can get round to all the apiaries is to do a complete varroa count. All boards, where available, are in.
Plus ...
At the Rectory:
Cappings to be given to R3
Green Lane:
Cappings to all 3 hives - must remember to take 2 supers and either 3 crown boards or feeders
Little Piece:
Cappings to LP5
LP2 - need to check the second pack of fondant as it was untouched (might not be fully open) and take some zinc nails and a hammer for the roof
Posted by Sally on Sunday 21 February 2010 - 23:48:22 |
Sunday inspection
A visit to all of our out-apiaries today. We've been able to check up on the hives in the garden daily and the bees are flying well on sunny days and clearly starting to bring in pollen already (must find out what that shrub is inthe garden but it is alive with bees!)
So, over to the Recotry. All looks good and bees seen at all hives. Hive 1 continues to be a good weight. Hive 2 seems OK when we hefted and the bees have found and are using the fondant. Hive 3 did seem a bit on the light side but we have some cappings from last year so will aim to let them have some of those.
Over at Green Lane we saw bees at each of the hives but they are on the light side so all would be good candidates for a gift of some cappings too.
At Little Piece, we removed hive 4 which is the colony that had dide out (just too small a colony to handle the cold spell we thought). We've brought the brood box home to take a good look. The others all seem fine though. We cleaned off all the varroa boards and plan to do a count soon. Hive 1 is a good weight. Weight seems OK on hive 2 and the bees have found and are taking the fondant. Nice collection of ladybirds taking refuge in the roof of hive 3 and that weighs OK too. Hive 5 is probably a bit onthe light side but it is a small colony and they have found and are taking the fondant we put on last time.
Then finally, over to the Hill. Bees seen there too and weight seemed OK and they seem hardly to have touched the fondant. We cleaned off that varroa board too so will need to get round for a full varroa check soon.
Posted by Sally on Sunday 21 February 2010 - 18:28:00 |
Beekeeping audit, repair and preparation
Well a big thank you to Mark and to Jen for cleaning and scraping and not laughing too much at the state of some of our hives (and thanks too to Arthur for eventually bringing the cakes).
We didn't get everything done but then we have so much to do how could we? We make a start though. Our plan was at least to start the process to get to a position where we know what we need and understand what equipment we have and what condition it is in. That's the thing with second hand kit - you can get some great bargains but then again, you get some ill-made or ill-measured stuff. So, tape measures and chalk in hand we had a good sift through some boxes to sort what needed to be repaired and also cleaned up lots of kit. We had a few laughs and rants about beekeeping along the way of course and made time for lunch so it was a pleasant time spent with new beekeeping friends.
Posted by Sally on Saturday 20 February 2010 - 21:58:57 |
Varroa counts
Once again, David set to with the magnifying glass.
Today's counts (per day) for the garden apiary hives are:
G1: less than 1 a day
G2: less than 2
G3: less than 6 - still far too high but reducing
G4: less than 1
G5: less than 2 a day
And at the Hill the hive is less than 3 a day and whilst there David added a couple of pounds of home-made fondant. They're probably OK but best to be safe.
Posted by Sally on Sunday 31 January 2010 - 23:21:02 |
Making fondant
Last year's fondant had kept well in store and that's what David used to feed the lighter colonies over at Little Piece last week. But we also wanted to be sure with the hive on the Hill and hive 2 at the Rectory. So, I made up some more yesterday, which David put on at the Rectory and another lot today which is ready to go to the Hill when we have some time.
Posted by Sally on Sunday 24 January 2010 - 22:18:26 |
A little disappointing
We walked up the garden to take the air and look at the bees and I idly suggested that we should check the varroa count. I slid out one of the trays and immediately decided we had to count, as I could see a lot of varroa. It was about 4 weeks ago that we treated the garden apiary with oxalic acid, surely the count should be zero. I got a notepad and the magnifying glass and was quite shocked at the results. It's ten days since we last counted - the floors have been in during that time - and all the results were about the same daily rate as last time or greater! Some colonies are giving a daily average higher than before the treatment.
What is going on? There was a big drop after treatment. Are we still seeing some effect, perhaps because of the bees clustering in the cold weather? I have searched the net for info and did find one piece of research that had a surge of mite drop 2 weeks after the treatment, but mostly the effect trails off because there are no mites left! Did we not do it well enough? Was the product we bought too old? Have our bees been so strong that there are huge numbers of varroa? The Apiguard didn't seem to do the job this year either. And we have managed the colonies with shook and artificial swarms and some drone culling. We didn't sugar them as much as we would have liked because the humidity has been so great for so much of the year: could that be a key element that we are now paying for missing?
I have put the trays back in. I would like to think that when we check again they will show much better results, but I fear they will not.
Posted by David on Saturday 23 January 2010 - 22:54:24 |
Just not enough bees
I went over to Little Piece today following up on the varroa check 4 days ago. The plan was to do nothing to Hive 1 as the Apiguard had done its work and it is a good weight. Hive 2 we had decided to treat with oxalic acid and feed some fondant as they were light. Hive 3 was scheduled for oxalic acid and the other three colonies were due a top up of food by way of Sally's homemade fondant just in case stores were getting low.So I got together some supers to act as ekes and the fondant and oxalic acid and drove over to sort them out. It was good that I had a clear plan but...
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Posted by David on Monday 18 January 2010 - 18:35:38 |