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.

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.

First inspection of the year

My patience has paid off and the weather has suddenly become more like summer than spring! The last couple of days have been really warm and I decided to have a look at my bees yesterday, just after midday, when the temperature was about 17 deg C.

I got suited up and went out to the hives. First of all I watched for activity at the hive entrances and was pleased to see quite a few flying bees bringing in pollen. I managed to photograph a bee coming in laden with bright yellow pollen, which was possibly Willow.

I also saw bees bringing in bright orange coloured pollen, which could have been Dandelion. Armed with my smoker in one hand and hive tool I approached my first hive.On lifting the roof off the hive I was confronted with a mass of bees on the top bars of the frames.

I opened up the hives, took out the dummy board at the back of the brood chamber and quickly went through the frames, prising them apart and peering down between them to see what was going on. I had given this hive some fondant over the winter because I thought that they really had not taken down enough syrup in the autumn. The fondant was all gone and looking through the frames there really was not very much left in the way of stores. I considered giving this colony some light syrup, but decided against it because the weather forecast is good for the next week or so and the bees should be able to find sufficient forage. The bees were very calm and well behaved and I barely needed to use any smoke. I did notice quite a few dead bees lying on the mesh floor of the hive, but I assumed that the undertaker bees would dispose of them in due course.

Working my way through the brood chamber I found the brood nest. I lifted a couple of frames out one by one to have a quick look. To my delight I saw eggs, larvae and sealed worker brood, and I saw the marked queen! I carefully put the frames back and put everything back in place and closed the hive up.

On to hive number two - this is the one I was a little worried about and it is also my "best" colony from last year. Sure enough, on removing the roof there were very few bees on the top bars of the frames. I proceeded with the inspection and to my great relief found that there were plenty of bees in the hive - they were all hiding lower down on the frames. I worked my way through the hive and again I found eggs, larvae, sealed worker brood and I even saw the very elusive unmarked queen! Again the bees were very quiet and a joy to work with, and I was glad to see that this hive still had plenty of stores left in the form of sealed Happy days - two out of two so far!

And so on to hive number three. There were certainly plenty of bees in hive number three, but as soon as I opened up the hive I noticed the presence of drones (male bees). How odd! I worked my way through the brood chamber and found the brood nest. I saw eggs, big fat larvae, and sealed drone brood (easily identified by the highly domed cappings)There was no sign of any worker brood anywhere!

I clearly have a drone laying queen. I went through the frames carefully and found what I believed to be the offending queen and squashed her. I closed the hive up. These bees were much more aggressive than the first two hives. I was glad that I had (hopefully) found and killed the drone laying queen and decided to requeen this colony with the reserve queen I had in my nuc....or so I thought!

To my horror, when I opened the nuc up I found no eggs, no larvae, no brood and no queen! There wasn't very many bees in the nuc. The queen had obviously died or disappeared over the winter. This was going to make saving hive number three much more difficult!

The most obvious thing to do is to unite hive three with one of my good hives, but having thought about it (and slept on it) I'm very reluctant to do this. I tried to requeen hive three twice last year, and it would appear that they killed both new queens because they had a poorly mated queen of their own in residence, who had now turned into a drone laying queen. I think I found and killed her, but I cant be 100% sure and I do not want to risk uniting this colony with one of my good colonies in case they kill another good queen!

Requeening really isn't an option at this time of year simply because there aren't any mated queens available, and there won't be until May at the earliest. As I see it the only chance I have of saving this colony is to give them a frame from one of my good colonies containing some eggs and young larvae, and let them have a go at rearing a new queen. However this is pretty much a last resort and only has a slim chance of succeeding, and it has the disadvantage that I'm going to weaken one of my good colonies by doing so.

If anyone reading this has any other suggestions as to how I can save this colony then please let me know!

More signs of Spring

I'm still waiting for a day when it is warm enough to inspect my bees properly. However the signs are that Spring is on its way. The Primroses are in full flower...

...and the Black Alder trees are loaded with pollen. The following photo clearly shows the male and female catkins on the end of a twig.

Hopefully one day soon the temperature will creep up into the mid to high teens and I'll be able to have a look inside the hives and see if my colonies are building up as they should be at this time of year.

Crown board and clearer board

Time to get back to hive construction! First of all, cut a square of thin plywood 460mm by 460mm. I've used 6mm thick ply, but you could use 9mm if you want a more sturdy board. Then cut 8 pieces of 25mm by 6mm strip wood all 435mm long. Nail the pieces of strip wood around the edges of the plywood on both side using small 12mm long nails. The following photo shows the crown board with half of the strips attached. It's a good idea to stagger the joins in the wooden strips on either side of the plywood.

Nail the rest of the strips in place as shown in the following photo. That's the basic structure of the crown board finished.

You could use the crown board like this, but it is usually convenient to have a feed hole in the crown board. Check what size of hole you require - a 35mm diameter hole is what is needed for the rapid feeders that I use. Cut the feed hole in the centre of the crown board. I find that it is a good idea to place the empty feeder on the crown board making sure that it is lined up properly with the hole and then carefully mark a line with a pen or pencil around the outside of the feeder. When feeding this makes it easy to ensure that the feeder full of syrup is in the right place!

When using the crown board without a feeder, simply close off the hole by placing a piece of plywood (or any other flat solid object) over the hole. If you want to leave the hole open for ventilation you can place a small piece of wire mesh (the varroa floor mesh is ideal) over the hole and secure it in place with drawing pins if you wish.

Now, if you are making a clearer board (or escape board) you follow exactly the same procedure, except now the type and size of hole you require depends on what type of bee escape device you will use. If you are using Porter bee escapes you will need to cut oval holes (not easy!) and they will need to be a good fit. I recently bought some large circular escapes that I'm going to try (see photo).

The advantage of this type of escape is that the size and shape of the hole is not critical. I think I'll be able to use the same size holes as for the rapid feeders which means that all I have to do to turn the crown board into a clearer board if attach the circular escape using drawing pins. Incidentally the photo above shows the underside of the clearer board - the bees would come down through the hole in the centre of the board and then out along the spoke-like channels.

Spring into action!

Today was very bright and sunny, and although it was quite a bit colder than earlier in the week, I went down to the beehives  in the hope of seeing some more bees bringing in pollen. However the bees were staying in the hives today - it was just not warm enough for them to be out and about.

Ever since I saw the bees bringing in pollen earlier in the week I've been wondering what they could be foraging on. When I was out today I saw a few Primroses in flower, as well as Crocuses (see photo), Daffodils, Daises and Dandelions, and the very last of the Snowdrops.

There are quite a few Goat Willow bushes growing around where I have my hives and I was pleased to see that the buds on them were just starting to open (see photo).

Willow is an important forage plant for the bees in the early spring and provides a good source of pollen which the bees need for the spring build up. I only hope that the weather in the coming weeks is mild and fair so that the bees can get off to a good start to the year.

Bees bringing in pollen

It was a very mild day today (about 12.5 deg C) and the weather was dry and fairly bright so I took the opportunity to have a quick look at my bees. I'm pleased to say that I saw bees flying from all my hives and saw some bees bringing in pollen, which is a good sign that all is well with a colony. On each hive I lifted the roof off and had a quick look through the clear plastic crown boards.

The photo above shows hive number one. There's still some fondant left on the top bars of the hive and there seems to be a good many bees on the tops of the frames. I had to requeen this hive in July last year after the queen had mysteriously disappeared and the new queen the bees raised turned out to be a drone layer. This colony did not take the syrup down as well as I would have liked last autumn, which is why I gave it some fondant in October and again in December.

The photo above shows hive number two. I'm very worried about this one! There seems to be very few bees although the bees from this hive were flying well today and bringing in pollen. This colony was my best last year and yielded 30 lbs of lovely honey.

Looking back at my records I see that the queen in this colony is now entering her third season, but she was possibly superceded last August. I had found queen cells in this colony which were later sealed, but when I inspected the colony just before the new queens were due to emerge there was no sign of the queen cells and I found eggs in the colony. I don't think they swarmed, so either they superceded (or tried to anyway), or they were going to swarm and changed their minds! Unfortunately there's no way to know for certain because the original queen was not marked.

This colony remained very strong into the autumn last year, but after the suspected supercedure I never saw the queen, and there were not very many eggs in the colony towards the end of the season. There really should be more bees in this colony now and I suspect that either the original queen is still in residence and is not laying well, or that the new queen has a problem. I definitely need to have a closer look at this colony as soon as I can, but the weather is just not warm enough yet for a full inspection. I "hefted" the hive and it is still very heavy, so there's plenty of stores, but the cluster of bees has moved into the front right corner of the hive so may have become separated from the stores.

The photo above shows hive number three. Last August I damaged the original queen whilst marking her and the bees failed to rear a new queen. My first attempt at requeening in September failed and I tried again in October to introduce a new queen. However after introducing the new queen I was not able to verify that she had been accepted and  I never observed any eggs or larvae in this colony because it was so late in the season and it was too cold to do a full inspection. Therefore I can't be certain that this colony went into the winter in a queenright state, although the fact that the colony is still alive and reasonably strong would suggest that there must be a queen in residence. I need to have a closer look at this colony as soon as I can when the weather improves.

The photo above shows a nuc that I overwintered. After my various manipulations towards the end of last year I ended up with three or four frames of bees that I could not find a home for, so I put them in this nuc and introduced a queen. That was last September and before winter closed in I was able to verify that the queen had been accepted and I observed eggs and larvae. My reasoning was that if I could successfully bring this nuc through the winter then I would have a "spare" colony which I could unite with one of my other colonies if necessary or build up into a full colony in the spring. I'm pleased that this nuc has made it this far, but I will know more when I do a proper inspection.