Calm in the Garden
I had loads of conference calls today but David got on with necessary apiary work in the Garden and once, I'd finished, I was able to join him. By the time I got out there, he had already taken a look in G1 and confirmed that there was definitely no queen or brood in that colony and it was ready to unite with G3. He had also looked in G3, saw the queen with just a tiny dot left of her red marking, She's on 9 frames and the middle super is heavy but not yet capped.
Colony 7 has 5 frames of brood and he saw our new unmarked queen. David also moved that colony a littler nearer to 4.
I joined him as he was starting to check out and tidy up hive 2, our recently united colonies 2 and 5. There's a little drone brood left in the lower brood chamber and we removed the QX to allow the queen to extend her nest downwards should she choose to. She's on 9 frames in the upper brood box. This queen was the first one we picked up in a swarm in the next door garden and as we don't know how old she was in 2008 we wonder if she may supercede. No real sign of anything yet but we left a couple of queen cups for the bees to do whatever they need. We removed an empty super and also managed to remove the wax penthouse!
Then onto hives 1 and 3 which we have united once again with the queen-right brood box above the queenless colony with newspaper between.
A quick look in colony 4 revealed no sign of a queen or young brood so we'll need to check again before uniting because we had thought it had a drone layer but we'll check in better light.
And finally, surprise surprise ... a quick look in the nuc (colony 9) and what do we spy? A queen and a very small patch of brood. Not many bees - probably in shock from their invasion yesterday but nonetheless a small colony. Now, how did that happen?
Posted by Sally on Thursday 05 August 2010 - 23:01:18 |
Now there's another thing
I went up he garden to pick some parsley, and like yesterday there was activity at the nuc. Not the drone swarm like yesterday but as if the nuc is occupied and with a good number of drones about. Perhaps a better way to descripe it is more like when a bait hive has almost been decided on as a new home. Bees regularly going straight in, guards etc. Is it their lunch break and they have all nipped off to check out the action somewhere else? There hasn't been a sign of action there since yesterday afternoon so what is happening? Usually if there is a colony that has swarmed or about to swarm that is looking for a home there is activity all day. Has there been a mating flight and they have used a hive for the honeymoon? Has a small swarm taken up residence? Await the next exciting instalment ...
Posted by David on Thursday 05 August 2010 - 14:22:25 |
Now there's a thing
I walked up the garden to pick some parsley and was astonished to find myself in a swarm of drones. I have never seen anything like it. It was just like an ordinary swarm but smaller and composed almost exclusively of drones. The centre of attraction seemed to be the nucleus hive which had housed a failing queenless colony that got robbed out last week. Drones were going in and out of the nuc - mostly in - and generally milling around outside a bit like mass orienting at a normal hive. It was as if a drone cloud had been foreced to ground by the heavy, lowering clouds!
I called Sally to come and witness it and when we returned the number of bees had reduced a little and I noticed an increased proportion of workers in the swarm. I checked around to see if there was a swarm hanging somewhere and Sally called out that they were gathering at and going in to the nuc. There was a mass of bees clustered outside the entrance and by all indications we believed we had a swarm take up residence.
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Posted by David on Wednesday 04 August 2010 - 12:28:12 |
Two queens in GL3!
A visit over to Green Lane to finish off what we hadn't got around to last week ...
An inspection of GL2 revealed our 2009 queen, marked green and laying on 8 frames but still a very high varroa count.
Now GL3 was quite a surprise. We saw the queen that we had marked blue last time, and counted 3 frames of brood - a lovely pattern - and then picked up another frame and spotted a second queen - yes we have one marked blue and one unmarked. Looking at the timings, we had seen two sealed queen cells on 3rd July so it is possible that this is mother and daughter and they are planning to supercede. Now I hadn't seen that before - exciting or what.
Over at The Rectory a varroa count of 10 in 8 days looks good for R1, 29 in 8 days for R2, a disappointing 69 in 8 days for R3 and worse, 108 for R4.
We only inspected R3 but saw no sign of a new queen. There is certainly plenty of pollen so we'll check again. Finally we are clearing our brood size super of honey.
Posted by Sally on Sunday 01 August 2010 - 23:37:56 |
Little Piece and The Hill
Prioritising our apiary visits now at this time of year, we decided to visit Little Piece and The Hill.
Over at Little Piece, David did the varroa checks, having put in varroa boards a week ago. We recorded totals of 6 in LP1, 14 in LP2, 76 in LP3, 2 in LP4 and LP5 is on a solid floor so we are unable to check. LP3 is obviously the concern so we may need to treat. The air was certainly too damp to apply sugar at this time which would have helped.
Inside LP1 we saw the newly marked queen (blue) who is laying across 5 frames.
LP2 seems to have a drone layer as we found 5 frames of drone brood only. We did take three frames of sealed honey though - our friend Dave who lives nearby will appreciate a sample from those for his hayfever.
LP3 is on 7 frames and we saw the queen, marked blue. We also put a clearer boeard to clear one super on that hive. Honey at last from this apiary!
LP4 is on 8 frames but we didn't see that queen and there is a queen cell with an egg in it so we shall have to see what happens there.
And finally, we saw the new queen in LP5 and marked her blue. She is on 8 frames of brood - a lovely pattern.
We've put entrance blocks in all the hives apart from number 5 which need to be ones that fit a wider entrance.
Over to The Hill ...
Well last time we looked at colony 1 on The Hill we found we had a new queen, although didn't actually see her, but today we find no queen and only the remains of drone brood on 4 frames. A varroa count of 7 in 3 days isn't bad at this time of year but this is a declining colony. Colony 2 on the other hand has built up to 5 frames of brood although we found 2 sealed queen cells which we left. At this time of year we just have to trust the bees to know if they want to replace their queen. There doesn't seem to be enough bees for them to want to swarm - famous last words! We had marked this queen so we will at least know if she gets through or is replaced.
Posted by Sally on Saturday 31 July 2010 - 23:02:41 |
Home from Manchester and what do I find ...
... Less bees - but in a good way.
It was really nice to walk up the garden when I got home from a long journey and see David busily working away at the hive.
G2 is our queenless colony which we planned to unite with G5 and David has been slowly turning and moving G5 to be beside G2 in order to do so. And this evening he united them - very defttly too and without my help. So G2 (queenless) brood is on the bottom then QX with newspaper separating the next brood which is G5 with Queen, then another QX, Above that a super from G5, newspaper and two supers from G2 then at the top the wonderful penthouse they have build - the wax sculpture with honey stores. Hopefully they will now take the honey down from there!
Whilst I've been away David has also moved hive 1 to beside hive 3 ready to unite and hive 7 is also moving a little closer to hive 4 giving us the option to unite those.
Posted by Sally on Thursday 29 July 2010 - 22:56:12 |
Varroa checks
We're making quite a few moves in the garden and certainly need to be on top of varroa - at least to know whether we need to treat. A zero count in G1 is less impressive when you think there is actually nothing going on in there. G2 has a count of 8 in 2 days. G3 a much too high count of 36 in 2 days. G4 2 in 2 days. When we checked G5 a couple of days ago we recorded a drop of 1 in 3 days. We will continue to monitor but this apiary is likely to need treatment.
Posted by Sally on Monday 26 July 2010 - 22:21:24 |
Weekend Beekeeping
A visit to The Rectory yesterday to add varroa boards or do counts - R2 is running at 25 across a week, R3 24 in a week. We also inspected R2 and saw the queen (marked blue). We have a double brood with 4 frames below and 5 above and a lot of stores in the top brood.
Then today we visited Green Lane. GL1 is on 3 frames and we saw the new queen and marked her blue. We need to put a narrow entrance block in that national hive.
We just did a varroa check on GL2 which remains seriously high but we have already decided that this apiary will be treated.
GL2a clearly has a queen although we haven't yet see her. She is laying on 5 frames. We did, however, find one sealed queen cell which we have left in place.
GL3a, another 2010 queen, marked blue, is on 14 frames across a double brood. We moved a frame of stores from the top brood down and some foundation up to provide more laying space.
GL4, one we had been concerned about temper, seemed fine and we saw the new queen and marked her blue. she is on 7 frames of brood. We gave a frame of stores from this colony to colony 1 and provided a frame with foundation to give her more laying space.
Posted by Sally on Sunday 25 July 2010 - 22:23:59 |
Garden update
David checked out hive 7 in the garden today whilst I was up in Birmingham. He didn't see the queen but she is laying on 4 frames. He added a couple of frames of partially drawn foundation to take them up to 10 frames in the national hive - all looking OK. At the same time he also took a look at the nuc - colony 9 - seems to be just one frame of drone brood with no queen in evidence. We'll start to move that closer to the colonies in the apiary and unite when we can.
Posted by Sally on Wednesday 21 July 2010 - 22:30:00 |
So, what needs to be done this weekend?
The season has moved on and there is less likelihood of the bees swarming (famous last words ... didn't we pick up a swarm on August bank holiday last year!?). Anyway, we reviewed what needed to be done and decided which colonies would get our attention this weekend.
There were colonies that we had given frames of eggs to see if they were queenless and we decided to check those on Saturday. First, over to the Hill ... yes, we saw eggs in colony 1 - there were 3 frames of brood, one of which was the one we added last week. So, a little later than the queen in hive 2 but she has now started.
Colony 2 on the Hill now has 5 frames of brood and we saw that queen - marked blue during the last inspection. We spotted the first wasp in a hive though, happily roaming the frames (until we despatched it!). So, today we returned and added some entrance blocks to reduce the entrance and give the guard bees a hand.
Then over to the Rectory ...
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Posted by Sally on Sunday 18 July 2010 - 21:19:00 |