Hive City!!

Well, Thursday the weather held off enough for us to inspect Hive 3 at Cordwood- and yes there were swarm cells- some lovely cells with royal jelly and larvae, fairly well developed. So back into artificial swarm mode we went- we are getting fairly slick at this now. I am so pleased we took the time to get equipment ready during the winter and early spring. As the weather held off long enough we also went through the brood hive we had moved to Cordwood and knocked down all but one sealed queen cell. This frame we marked with a drawing pin to make it easy to keep track of. I have also realised just how important record keeping is- the more hives you have it's not so easy to remember what you have done, it needs to be written down.



Hive City- six hives and a nuc at Cordwood!

 So now we have seven hives to look after and the tiny nuc which amazingly is feeding and were flying well on Thursday. Since then weather has been awful- there has been an email from FERA to warn about bees starving because they can't get out to forage.
The weather looks fair for Monday and jobs for that day will include-
* a check on the garden hive to see if the queen is laying and they are getting on OK.
* going through the old brood of Hive 1 (1B)to knock down any emergency queen cells the bees have made since the artificial swarm.
* a quick look in the now Hive 1A to see if the old queen in there is laying and the bees are getting on OK.
Also possibly going through Hive 3- the old brood and the box with the original queen in- this is where timings get crucial. This artificial swarm was done on Thursday- the queen cell is open (egg and larvae) for 8 days then sealed for 8 days so when to check and knock off extra cells is important. If you check too soon the bees could still try to make a queen cell from an  egg or larvae that in theory is too old. Hopefully in this case though, the successful queen will destroy these when she hatches, but there is just the possibility that the bees will decide to swarm with her instead. Decisions, decisions!!
In the back ground of the picture you may be able to make out the diggers which have now moved in and made a serious start on the preparations for the building at Corwood- you can follow the progress on Rob's blog at http://sustainablegarden.blogspot.co.uk/
Exciting times all round!

Update - Artificial Swarms

A quick update on the small cluster of bees that insisted on staying under the hive- after I had scooped them into the nucleus box and left them overnight, they were still there the next day! I put a feeder over them and dribbled a bit of syrup over them to encourage them - after all these bees had been out in the rain and wind for quite a while. They were clustered in the top corner of the nuc- not much bigger than a tennis ball and probably will come to nothing because I can't imagine a queen is in there with them, but I don't like to just abandon them. The weather has been awful- a yellow warning of heavy rain - so we are still trying to check the last hive at Cordwood , the others had shown signs of swarming so we are prepared with plenty of equipment, hopefully the weather will hold them back so we will be able to sort them out. We still also have to check the old brood boxes from the artificial swarms to make sure they only have one good queen cell, otherwise they may be tempted to cast with the virgin queens. So, plenty to do but we are waiting for the weather to give us an opening!

Artificial Swarm

So after the hive at Cordwood showed us what can happen when you can't get into a hive regularly, I was particularly keen to get into the Garden Hive. The weather gave us a break on Saturday afternoon and we took the opportunity to inspect them. And there indeed were some small queen cups containing tiny larvae and royal jelly. So, an artificial swarm was the course of action. The only problem was in a very full brood box we had to find the queen- and she wasn't going to make it easy for us.Once through the hive and no luck so back through the frames again- this time I decided to check a frame and put it into a nuc box as I did. On the third frame there she was so I put her in the nuc on her frame. Then text book artificial swarm - new brood box on the original site and old brood with frames and nurse bees moved to one side so the flying bees go back to the old queen. The idea is to persuade the bees they have already swarmed. The frame left with the old queen has to be free of queen cells and I was pretty ruthless in knocking out anything suspicious! Today, Sunday and the hive looks fine, there are bees already taking in pollen and the old brood box now with no flying bees has been moved and given a feed of syrup. Hopefully these bees will raise one of the queen cups, she will hatch and mate. I will leave this hive alone now for probably 3 to 4 weeks unless there is a problem to give the new queen time to get established.


Old hive with brood to one side and new brood box with old queen and flying bees.

 The old hive - the brood with the queen cups and non flying bees will find a temporary home at Cordwood- I am thinking that maybe if successful this hive may be passed on to a new beekeeper as a whole colony. It should have built up well by the time of the summer flow and produce honey later this year.

What's going on?

OK so I wonder is anyone else having blog problems- I have written posts and scheduled them but either they are not appearing or only the title! My last post about the little pile of dead bees outside the hive seems to be lost and I haven't the heart to go back and write it again- especially as the weather is conspiring against us getting into the hives.
Yesterday- after a gap of 9 days we went to Cordwood and one of the hives had a swarm under it!! The weather since we last went in has been been cold, frosts over night and certainly not the sort of weather for opening up a hive, but the bees obviously have been busy inside. The queen had decided it was too cold to go far and just snuck in under the hive where it was warm. We brushed all the bees we could (and hopefully the queen) into a box and emptied them into a nuc just next to the hive, in the hope that they would think it was a suitable home and move in. Today we will go back and see. Because there was a gap in the rain we had a quick look inside and found 3 lovely queen cups on one frame- must have just been capped and the break in the rain had made the bees decide to go for it! This year we have prepared equipment ready to perform artifical swarms and maybe raise some nucs but we have learnt again that the weather just does not work with us!!

Birthdays

This weekend was our Grandson Albert's 3rd birthday- earlier in the year Rowan celebrated his 1st birthday. Although they live in Portsmouth we are lucky enough to visit and be visited by our family often. This weekend we spent a day at Marwell Wildlife Park with Rebecca, Adam, Albert and Rowan and Gemma as well as Grandma and Frank, a lovely family get together!
Rebecca had made an awesome birthday cake which came along too!


Kwasi the octonaut






It was freezing and trying to get all the family together for a picture is impossible!!



Purple Sprouting Brocolli

Easter is traditionally the time to plant potatoes and this Good Friday we took the seed potatoes to the allotment ot plant. We have been busy making 3 new raised beds and used one of these as a potato bed. We are growing 3 of our favourites- International Kidney, Charlotte and Kestrel. Last years crop was great and we are still using up the last few stores.
Still cropping- we have a few leeks, chard is sprouting fresh leaves and the past month has seen us cropping one of very favourite vegetables- Purple Sprouting Brocolli.

Spring Cleaning

Over the past weeks the bees (and us) have been busy- the weather has been amazing, warm, sunny and not like March! Last year the bees swarmed at the beginning of April so this year we have been very careful about watching them.
On the 10th March the temperature was 15C in the garden, we checked quickly, the bees were taking in loads of pollen, bees were on 8 frames and brood on 6- the other frames were full of stores. As the weather stayed so good we did a floor change and longer check on the 21st  March- they were packed! We decided that whether it was March or not, a super was needed. The bees were good natured- we saw the queen- laying egg on the second frame!
On the 29th March the temperature was 24C in the garden and we did a more through inspection- I had found a caterpillar on the floor outside the hive which I thought was a Greater Wax Moth. During the inspection we didn't see any sign of a problem but they can be very hard to spot until they have done some damage. The books say a thriving colony can easily cope with Wax Moth and we have found a couple more on the floor since.
Mary reminded me that removing the slide under the open mesh floor can help because it gives the moth something to hang on to. They were removed from all the hives- the ventilation will be better now as the weather gets better. As I was cleaning the corrugated sheet from under the home hive it became obvious that there caterpillars in the grooves of the floors- a very useful hiding place for them. These will need to be replaced with a solid material!


Wire woodpecker protection removed



The Cordwood hives were also inspected and were thriving- all 3 needed tidying- lots of excess comb removed containing larvae, egg and stores. I checked the brood for varroa mite and found only one. We removed the wire cages- the hives should be awake enough now to protect themselves if a woodpecker should show any interest.



Varroa mite on the cleared brood.