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Saturday, July 26, 2014

Artificial swarms before the dearth bites and an unusual home for a swarm!

In to the next phase 


So, the nectar flow comes crashing to an end! The chestnut trees have well and truly finished, their catkins are falling.  Time to make artificial swarms   and make use of the high population of bees.

Classic chestnut fronds and the developing nut.

I have taken the decision to keep producing as many colonies as possible. All my strong hives from the  supposed honey hives were artificially swarmed, 10 in total as well as a few very early swarms that had made the criteria, so i have another load of nucs full of bees. 

Full of bees they are indeed, the foragers returning came back to find their hive moved and just a nuc  or mini hive in its place.  Subsequently the bees go in to emergency queen cell production and will by now, have floated out a larvae that was less than 2 days old and flooded it with royal jelly to ensure it  turns in to a queen larvae, rather than a worker larvae. In another 13 to 14 days a virgin queen will emerge and claim the throne  for herself.
So when I selected  two frames from my mother colonies I selected one frame with eggs less than 2 days old and another with brood and pollen. This will give the nurse bees plenty of food to nourish the developing queens, prior to  metamorphosis and again after emergence.

Honey supers
So what about these if they are honey supers on the hives, well these get moved too.  Empty ones are removed, or frames juggled around to reduce the empty space in the hive. The bees might consume a little from these supers over the next four or five weeks prior to the harvest ,  but its food they have stored and they will continue to dry and cap over any uncured honey. 
The numbers in your mother hives ( donor hives) will have taken a massive knock, but you should have seen plenty of brood about to emerge (part of the selection criteria)  so this will soon make up the losses and bring the hive back up to full operation within a few weeks.

Create a Flow
Theres no flow really now,( a little bramble and some clover and pollen from the abundant maize plants but thats only for the next two weeks or two) so its really important to create one. So sugar syrup has been fed to each colony, until the queen cells are capped over and they will be fed again upon emergence. 
This is very easy and in the summer its amazing just how quickly the swarmed colonies build up their new home (nucs) in to three to four full frames ( out of the 5) in only a few days. Its also very important to say that you must not over feed the nucs, however tempting.  Just enough to keep the hive in the right balance, keep the bees drawing up comb. but not too much to take away space from the very soon emerging queen.
I was feeding 250ml every 2 to 3 days for the first 6 days, then the same on day 15 for another 3 feeds. Its  worth it, the colonies are then stocked up prior to there winter, and the developing young queens are born in to a strong, well fed environment, during her mating flights.
 This is the way forward for me,  the production of good queens, made under the best possible conditions, but thats for next year, now i have the nuc banks to give me all the resources i need.

Late swarm

So my good friend Alan called me to say he had had a call from a friend who had a swarm of bees in and outside electric meter box, so we went to investigate.

This is what we found, a newly arrived swarm , probably no more than 3 days since arrival, had made this its new home. The entrance was just the small 1cm square hole in the front of the box.
So rushing in, where angels fear to tread, I quickly lifted out the few bits of newly drawn comb and shook the bees from that , in to my waiting nuc box. Sure enough this worked but only for a short time. The queen obviously decided she didn't like the box, or the frames , or something,  did a u turn and left the box initiating a flying swarm with all the bees following her.
Fortunately they landed on a nearby cherry tree, after giving us a nice display of a beautiful swarm, on a lovely calm  sunny day



Lovely swarm, more than a handful Alan!

We then decided it was best to leave them hanging there for the rest of the hot day, rather than risk them moving off through our disturbance. sure enough they were still there in the evening, when they were relatively easy to hive.



Always wear a vail when handling swarms, docile that they seem, it only take one sting on or in the eye and you will really suffer!!

Good result, another swarm safely captured and now doing well. Its also useful to note that all artificial swarms created will not be going in full sized hives, theres just not the nectar flow. These will be kept over winter in  nucs and their spring build up and overwintering quality, together with general state of the hive can be measured.
Next spring is going to be interesting!! Time to make some more Nucs me thinks!!!


Tuesday, July 8, 2014

very short video

Heres a very short video of my bees in their summer nectar flow





Hope the weathers good, its actually gone off hear with loads of rain, so i am hoping that they can still find nectar between the showers.
Richard

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Its all coming together nicely!

Apart from my stupidity in not rocognising a very lightweight hive,  things seem to be going well.
We all  make mistakes and this one cost me the hive contents. During what I described as a recent dearth before the main nectar flow started, I moved my hives to a valley where there is an abundance of chestnut trees, but failed to act on a very light hive in time to save it. One unusually cold night and the result was catastrophic for the colony. Probably 25,000 dead in one night.  It was certainly starvation as there was not a drop of honey in the hive and no gradual weakening over days. All other hives adjacent very strong so i can rule out poisoning! well that will be in my diary for next year.

Still the hive did give me an artificial swarm  (split) and i made use of the 10 drawn u frames in my taps. Like always with beekeeping, you loose in some areas and gain in others.



Bramble, clover and of course the chestnut trees are in full flower. The glorious stink of chestnut emminating from the hives is reasuring that all colonies are getting what they need. Full nectar flow means happy bees and hives full of honey. Honey supers should be on all hives now and queen excluders should be cleaned and stored away until next spring. The summer honey  allows a late harvest and all brood (mostly drone) layed in to the upper parts of the hive ( the supers) will mostly hatch out and be replaced by honey, by the end of august, just in time for the harvest, but abpve all the queen has the freedom of the hive to organise more honey storage and brood production, so she is much less lilely to swarm. \Theres also a good arguement that shes already starting to prepare for the coming dearth , before the onset of autumn, depressing though it might be, it wont be far away!!
It is a waste of time putting on a honey super after the middle of july, as its the end of the main nectar flow and the end of the swarming season.



This swarm had been on this garden fence for probably four days and had built comb in to the fence. we managed to get most of the bees off, so we then were able to remove the comb and remarkably the bees just walked off the fence, in to the new hive we placed on the floor just adjacent. Its almost as if they were pleased of their new accomodation. The colony has a very small queen that appears to be laying well, so fingers crossed. Thanks again Alan, it was a rather nasty ditch, that was full of nettles that you managed to climb up, while i stood the other side of the fence, as you smoked them across.

Another person that called me, said they had the remains of a small swarm in their vegetable patch that had mostly disipated to elsewhere, so i put a swarm trap out and he morning after  a swarm arrived and took up residence. Its just having enough traps and material thats the problem. You must have well used nucs, with well used frames in, if you want a realistic chance of success.




My swarm traps have worked well. Over the last week I have found another 6 swarms in my traps. they are all of varying sizes, some on all 5 frames and some on only two. The smaller ones however, seem to be laying just as quickly as the larger colonies. As soon as you see a few eggs you are reasured that that colony has a realisitc chance of making it through this coming winter, in to the next spring. If the queen fails for many reasons, mostly she just is worn out and exhausted, then as long as she has laid a few eggs to cement her dynasty, thats all a colony will need under the emergency response to successfuly flood a larvae with royal jelly, float out and extend a worker cell in to a beautiful queen cell.


So my plan is to keep as many swarms as possible in ventilated nucs for overwintering.
My criteria for this will be, for this year that they have queens from this years artificially swarming, as its a pretty sure thing that most swarms will contain queens that are probably from last year or more than likely the year before.  I cant be any more selective than that, as i havent at this stage chosen eggs to graft from that subsequently will give me better  selected characteristics and so on! you have to start somewhere.

This will give me a brood factory for next year, so i can make up a very strong hive for queen rearing, which in turn might give me better stronger queens, it will allow me to have a nuc, or a queen ready to transfer in to another hive at short notice. and also give brood or frames of eggs to weaker colonies.
The whole concept is so clear to me now and initially is a lot of work to set up but in the long term the results should help make better queens and stronger hives but from a much more sustainable source!!

I hope your Bees are working well, good forecast for the next few days, just when we need it. Enjoy!!