Every day over the last week I moved hive number four a couple of feet closer to hive number three until by Friday the two hives were side by side. Yesterday I was all set to unite them when I received a phone call and the chance to buy a mated Apis Mellifera Mellifera queen. I agreed to buy one queen, but now I would have to rethink my plans and make preparations for the arrival of the new queen. I decided to have a look at my bees and find out what exactly where they (and I) stand.
My hive number one still had no eggs, larvae or brood, and the bees were not happy! By my reckoning a virgin queen hatched in this colony about two weeks ago and should still be there, waiting for a chance to get mated.
The bees were flying very well from hive number two and my inspection showed eggs, larvae and sealed brood, and no queen cells. They had taken down all the syrup I had given to them a week earlier and I removed the feeder because there was quite a lot of unsealed stores in the brood chamber. The queen had plenty of room to lay, but still had not started to use the two super frames of comb I had given to the colony more than two weeks ago, although I suspect that was down to the cold wet weather as much as anything.
On to hive number three. I had given this colony a frame of eggs, larvae and brood a week previously and I expected to see sealed queen cells by now. However when I removed the frame there were larvae and sealed brood, but no queen cells of any kind. I checked my dates - it was seven days since I inserted the frame of eggs, larvae and brood - they had not had time to rear a queen, so the inevitable conclusion I came to was that there must already have been some sort of queen in this colony! This colony did have a drone laying queen in earlier in the year, which I killed, and since then the colony never contained any eggs, so it is a bit of a mystery how there could be a queen in residence. Maybe in the absence of a queen and brood for the last eight weeks or so some of the workers were developing into laying workers, and starting to produce pheromones making the colony believe they had a queen.
Since hive number 3 and hive number four were side by side I decided to move hive number three over to where hive number four had originally been (about 7 or 8 metres away), and I placed hive number four exactly where hive number three had been. I then removed all the frames from hive number three one by one and shook all the bees off in front of the hive. In theory any bees that had been flying within the last couple of weeks, finding themselves out of the hive, should orient themselves and return to where their hive had just been moved from (i.e. the location now occupied by hive number four). All other bees (including the mysterious queen or laying workers) should hopefully be completely disoriented and simply head into the closest hive (i.e. hive number three). I gave hive number four a couple of frames of stores from hive number three and took the opportunity to take a few soiled and damaged frames out of service.I also gave hive number four the frame containing the larvae and sealed brood which had previously been in hive number three.
Hopefully by doing this hive number four now contains a good number of adult bees and drones, and also some emerging young bees, but no queen or laying workers. I will introduce the new queen to this colony when I receive her, and the young bees should be able to look after the new queen and any new brood she produces.
Sunday 20 May 2012
Sunday 13 May 2012
The May gap?
Yesterday was quite a pleasant day, between the showers. I took the chance to take a brood frame from my hive number two and give it to the queenless colony in hive number three. Just after I opened up hive number two the rain came on so my choice of frame and it's removal were a lot more hasty than I would have liked, but I did manage to select a frame with eggs, larvae of all ages and even some sealed and emerging brood. I just hope that in my haste I the queen in hive number two did not come to any harm...
Anyway the bees in hive number three now have a chance to rear a new queen. They have been hopelessly queenless for about 6 weeks, ever since I killed the drone laying queen that was in the colony. I hope they manage to rear a queen and get her mated, but really their chances of success depend much upon the weather, which brings me on to the main subject of this post - forage.
It has been yet another unusual start to the year. We seem to no longer have clearly defined seasons thanks I'm sure at least in part to global warming and climate instability. There were a few very warm days at the end of March, but since then the weather has been very mixed, and now in mid May is more like March again!
Beekeepers talk about the "June Gap" - the natural period after the Spring nectar flow but before the main Summer flow when nectar can be in very short supply and bees may need feeding. This year, because of the strange weather, I think we may be in danger of having a "May gap" because the normal Spring flow just has not got going yet! Therefore I decided to have a wander around farm to see what forage was available close to my apiary. In no particular order, here is what I found...
Current bushes in the garden, just finished flowering. There was still the odd bee buzzing around these bushes but as far as I could see they had finished flowering.
Hawthorne (also known as "May Blossom") just about to start flowering. I have loads of this around the farm, but to be of much value as a source of nectar it needs to be warm, and it is very prone to being "washed out" by rain.
Bluebells in full flower in the garden and under the trees. A few bees were showing an interest in them but I really don't have enough Bluebells for them to be a significant source of forage.
Anyway the bees in hive number three now have a chance to rear a new queen. They have been hopelessly queenless for about 6 weeks, ever since I killed the drone laying queen that was in the colony. I hope they manage to rear a queen and get her mated, but really their chances of success depend much upon the weather, which brings me on to the main subject of this post - forage.
It has been yet another unusual start to the year. We seem to no longer have clearly defined seasons thanks I'm sure at least in part to global warming and climate instability. There were a few very warm days at the end of March, but since then the weather has been very mixed, and now in mid May is more like March again!
Beekeepers talk about the "June Gap" - the natural period after the Spring nectar flow but before the main Summer flow when nectar can be in very short supply and bees may need feeding. This year, because of the strange weather, I think we may be in danger of having a "May gap" because the normal Spring flow just has not got going yet! Therefore I decided to have a wander around farm to see what forage was available close to my apiary. In no particular order, here is what I found...
Current bushes in the garden, just finished flowering. There was still the odd bee buzzing around these bushes but as far as I could see they had finished flowering.
Hawthorne (also known as "May Blossom") just about to start flowering. I have loads of this around the farm, but to be of much value as a source of nectar it needs to be warm, and it is very prone to being "washed out" by rain.
Bluebells in full flower in the garden and under the trees. A few bees were showing an interest in them but I really don't have enough Bluebells for them to be a significant source of forage.
Soft fruit bushes (mainly Apple and Plum) nearly finished flowering in and around the garden.
Sycamore trees flowering and just starting to come into leaf.
Ash trees in flower, but leaf buds still unopened.
I also saw a few butterflies including this Small Tortoiseshell...
and this Speckled Wood.
And I saw a large Bumblebee feeding on some Forget-me-not flowers.
So there is some forage around for the bees, but unless the weather warms up a bit the bees are unlikely to be able to take much advantage of it. The weather forecast for the week ahead is not good - still cool and showery, so I've given all my colonies some light syrup to keep them going.
Hopefully we'll get some more seasonal weather soon!
Friday 11 May 2012
Moving and uniting colonies
All beekeepers have been taught that "colonies may be moved under 3 feet or over 3 miles". If colonies are moved any distance in between the bees will become lost and not be able to find their way home to their hive. In my last post I said that I wanted to unite two of my colonies (number three and number four) before letting them try and raise a new queen. At present the two colonies are about twenty feet apart, with a Willow bush in between them. Before the two colonies are united they need to be moved next to each other. But how?
Let me introduce the "Move-a-Hive-a-Matic" (patent pending)
It is basically a pallet strapped to a wheel barrow with a piece of plywood screwed to the top to provide a flat solid support for a beehive. I've screwed small pieces of plywood to the edges of the pallet to keep it from sliding off the side of the wheel barrow.
Let me introduce the "Move-a-Hive-a-Matic" (patent pending)
It is basically a pallet strapped to a wheel barrow with a piece of plywood screwed to the top to provide a flat solid support for a beehive. I've screwed small pieces of plywood to the edges of the pallet to keep it from sliding off the side of the wheel barrow.
I took my new invention out to the apiary. I want to move hive number four next to hive number three and then unite them. First of all I checked that the "Move-a-Hive-a-Matic" would fit comfortably next to hive number three.
Then I took the "Move-a-Hive-a-Matic" over to hive number four and moved the hive on to it - a distance of just less than three feet. The photo below below shows hive number four after moving, and hive number three (the final destination) can be seen in the top right of the photo.
All I have to do now is move hive number four a couple of feet every day until I have it where I want it - next to hive number three. Pure genius if I say so myself!
Another Queenless colony!
It has been a while since my last post. A combination of poor weather and personal commitments has kept me away from my bees and my blog respectively. However, a week ago the weather turned fine for a day and I had the opportunity to go and have a look at my bees. I was eager to see how my two good colonies were building up. It was a very pleasant sunny day. The temperature was 18.5 deg C - far too hot really to get all suited up, but the perfect opportunity to make my second thorough inspection of the year.
As I opened up hive number one, I expected to see at least two or three frames of brood, but I found only half a frame of sealed brood - no eggs and just a handful of large larvae. I also found three sealed queen cells. Had I lost a swarm already? On closer inspection the queen cells looked like emergency cells - they were extended worker cells and did not look as if they had been started from queen cups. With the age of the brood in the colony I concluded that the queen had failed or died around the 25th of April - a month after my first inspection, so at least this time I was not to blame!
I removed the smallest of the queen cells and opened it of find a well formed white queen, so the queen cells had been sealed for at least a few days. There was very little stores in the hive so I decided to give the colony a rapid feeder full of light syrup to keep them going. Hopefully a new queen would hatch and mate successfully, although the quality of such a queen would be at best doubtful because the colony were forced into raising an emergency queen under far from ideal conditions.
Hive number two contained four good frames of brood and four frames of stores. The queen was not seen directly, but there were plenty of eggs and larvae of all ages. I was concerned that the queen was running out of space to lay so I removed two of the frames of stores and inserted two super frames of drawn comb into the brood chamber. This will provide room for the queen to lay, and the bees will build wild drone comb at the bottoms of the frames which can be removed as a varroa control measure (drone brood is capped for a couple more days than worker brood and varroa mites prefer it to worker brood for this reason) or the drones can be left to emerge and assist in the mating of virgin queens. The two frames of stores that were removed from hive number two were bruised (to encourage the bees to use them) and were inserted into hive number one, further boosting their stores. I also took the opportunity put a super on hive number two, just in case there is a sudden large flow of nectar...
Hive number three contained plenty of bees (including drones), but no eggs, larvae or brood, so I am fairly confident that I did indeed manage to kill the drone laying queen during my previous inspection. This colony is therefore hopelessly queenless and this needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
My nuc still contained a fair few bees, but again there was no sign of any eggs, larvae or brood. The inside of the nuc box was mouldy so I decided to transfer the frames and bees to a clean new hive. Some of the frames contained a few mouldy cells containing pollen and these were cut out as the frames were transferred into the new brood chamber.
So there you have it. I have one "good" colony out of four! It is now exactly one year since I obtained my first bees, and although I have gained a year's experience, I can't really say that it has been easy! I have asked around regarding the availability of queens and even nucs, but have not come up with anything because it is still very early in the season and we have not have had any decent spells of weather so far this year. I have spent a few days thinking about the best way forward and have been reading up on queen rearing by various methods including Miller, Cloake Board, Swarm Box and the Ben Harden method.
My current plan of action is:
1. Leave hive number one to requeen themselves. The virgin queen(s) should have hatched by now. Hopefully the weather will improve and the virgin queen will mate successfully.
2. Leave hive number two rear some drones and then use it to rear some queens using the Ben Harden method. This method has minimal impact on the foraging ability of the queen cell raising colony, however it will involve grafting which is totally new to me. Should be interesting! Any good quality queens produced could be used to requeen hive number one and three if necessary, as well as replace the queen in hive number two who is now in her third year.
3. Unite hive number four (previously the nuc) with hive number three and then give them a frame of eggs and larvae from hive number two and let them try and raise a new queen.
Keeping bees is certainly a challenge, but that's why it is such an enjoyable and satisfying hobby.
As I opened up hive number one, I expected to see at least two or three frames of brood, but I found only half a frame of sealed brood - no eggs and just a handful of large larvae. I also found three sealed queen cells. Had I lost a swarm already? On closer inspection the queen cells looked like emergency cells - they were extended worker cells and did not look as if they had been started from queen cups. With the age of the brood in the colony I concluded that the queen had failed or died around the 25th of April - a month after my first inspection, so at least this time I was not to blame!
I removed the smallest of the queen cells and opened it of find a well formed white queen, so the queen cells had been sealed for at least a few days. There was very little stores in the hive so I decided to give the colony a rapid feeder full of light syrup to keep them going. Hopefully a new queen would hatch and mate successfully, although the quality of such a queen would be at best doubtful because the colony were forced into raising an emergency queen under far from ideal conditions.
Hive number two contained four good frames of brood and four frames of stores. The queen was not seen directly, but there were plenty of eggs and larvae of all ages. I was concerned that the queen was running out of space to lay so I removed two of the frames of stores and inserted two super frames of drawn comb into the brood chamber. This will provide room for the queen to lay, and the bees will build wild drone comb at the bottoms of the frames which can be removed as a varroa control measure (drone brood is capped for a couple more days than worker brood and varroa mites prefer it to worker brood for this reason) or the drones can be left to emerge and assist in the mating of virgin queens. The two frames of stores that were removed from hive number two were bruised (to encourage the bees to use them) and were inserted into hive number one, further boosting their stores. I also took the opportunity put a super on hive number two, just in case there is a sudden large flow of nectar...
Hive number three contained plenty of bees (including drones), but no eggs, larvae or brood, so I am fairly confident that I did indeed manage to kill the drone laying queen during my previous inspection. This colony is therefore hopelessly queenless and this needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
My nuc still contained a fair few bees, but again there was no sign of any eggs, larvae or brood. The inside of the nuc box was mouldy so I decided to transfer the frames and bees to a clean new hive. Some of the frames contained a few mouldy cells containing pollen and these were cut out as the frames were transferred into the new brood chamber.
So there you have it. I have one "good" colony out of four! It is now exactly one year since I obtained my first bees, and although I have gained a year's experience, I can't really say that it has been easy! I have asked around regarding the availability of queens and even nucs, but have not come up with anything because it is still very early in the season and we have not have had any decent spells of weather so far this year. I have spent a few days thinking about the best way forward and have been reading up on queen rearing by various methods including Miller, Cloake Board, Swarm Box and the Ben Harden method.
My current plan of action is:
1. Leave hive number one to requeen themselves. The virgin queen(s) should have hatched by now. Hopefully the weather will improve and the virgin queen will mate successfully.
2. Leave hive number two rear some drones and then use it to rear some queens using the Ben Harden method. This method has minimal impact on the foraging ability of the queen cell raising colony, however it will involve grafting which is totally new to me. Should be interesting! Any good quality queens produced could be used to requeen hive number one and three if necessary, as well as replace the queen in hive number two who is now in her third year.
3. Unite hive number four (previously the nuc) with hive number three and then give them a frame of eggs and larvae from hive number two and let them try and raise a new queen.
Keeping bees is certainly a challenge, but that's why it is such an enjoyable and satisfying hobby.
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