Big Swarm

Caught this really big swarm  last night. Well I did`nt exactly catch it, I showed them the Nuc box and they filtered in after about an hour. Its probably the biggest I have ever caught, about 15,000 bees or more.

I have just returned from transfering them in to a Normal 10 framed hive this morning and could not believe that over night they had partially drawn up 4 frames of plain wax sheet.
When I coaxed them in yesterday evening I didnt have any dawn up comb so I simply sprayed all the wax  sheets with sugar syrop. It seems to have done the trick.  I have also put on a feeder  to give them a really good star!

The Artificial Swarm

The Artificial Swarm.

Artificial Swarming has many uses and had been used for many years, as a way of managing bees for the purposes of swarm management and producing new colonies. It also could be said that it is a way of "supressing" or "dampening" down your bees for a few weeks until you really need the maximum amount of bees in your colonies. I will try and  explain what I mean in the following  senarios:



Senario 1


You have a colony of bees that has made it through the winter. The colony builds up very quickly in March and April, so you decide to take spring honey. The numbers of bees in the colony are high and there is a lot of bees in a standard size hive and they are getting very congested. You put on your honey supers, so that giving your bees more space, so they begin to forage well and  fill up the honey super quickly.

Hey presto, you have a super full of spring honey and you decide you need to extract this honey because if you don`t extract it soon the oil seed rape presence within the honey, will cause it  to crystalize in the honey super, making it virtually impossible to extract and use afterwards. You extract and then suddenly all the extra space you had for your bees has gone. You are now putting your bees under pressure and kind of inducing swarming. They have all they need, a good functioning queen , loads of brood constantly hatching and loads or workers all packed in to  your 10 framed hive. Its a sure thing that within the next 2 weeks they will swarm. So what do you do?  you perform an artificial swarm.

Senario 2


You have a good spring build up, but are not too bothered about spring honey and want to get some really good quality summer honey and could use another colony of bees.
You leave your bee numbers build up well and when you think they might be about to swarm ( see guidelines) you perform an artificial swarm. This will reduce the numbers  and create a new colony but also suppress your bees for a few weeks, lowering the numbers of the colony to avoid congestion and swarming.
Just when the numbers start to build up well, you add your summer honey supers and give the colony more space, thus avoiding congestion  and assisting in the prevention of swarming.
That`s not to say that they won`t swarm but generally if you have a few hives and follow this senario then most of them won`t swarm at the wrong time, leaving you with a few foragers in a heavy nectar flow.
Don`t forget you need the maximum amount of bees in the hive at the peak nectar flow, whether its spring or summer honey you are taking.


Senario 3


You can also perform an artificial swarm at the end of the summer nectar flow, but before the honey harvest.
Carry out all of the senario in 2 but just carry  out an artificial swarm at the end of the main nectar flow and move all your honey supers with the hive you have swarmed. Yes its darned hard work moving all that around! The remaining bees will finish curing and drying the honey but it won`t mean you lose your honey crop and also you will have some really good mated queens and above all feree colonies of  bees.
They summer queens are always said to be  the best queens as they have mated in the best weather with the widest selection of drones. In brittany carry out this last artificial swarm when the chestnut tree catkins turn dark brown. Thats the end of the main nectar flow here usually the second week in July.





(Shown by kind permission of Mr Charles Basset who narrates in the film.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KEsJEmv2_c

The principle of Performing an artificial swarm is this.

1. Move your mother hive off the stand  and place it in front of its original position. about 1 meter forward is fine.
2. Open up your mother hive after smoking well. and place an open nuc in the positon of the existing mother hive.
3. Select 1 frame of eggs from the mother hive that are less than 3 days old.( or at least a good amount of eggs that are visibly there.)
4. Select another of brood , pollen and stores ( on one other frame)
5. Place these two frames in to the middle of the nuc and put in three other frames of un drawn up wax sheet around other 2 frames.
6. Close the lid of the nuc, put on the roof.
7. In the mother hive replace the missing 2 frames you have selected. I prefer to bunch up the brood to avoid separating the brood and I place the replacement frames in between the end of the brood and the start of the reserves. That way they will draw they will draw up the new frames quickly but not at the expense of losing some all important brood.
8. Close up he mother hive and move it more that 10 meters away.
9. All the flying bees will then, if not already , will return from the mother hive to the nuc and find the queen missing and start to initiate emergency queen cell production.

Before I explain any more, I know there is loads  of what I would term" very complicated" ways of performing an artificial swarms but this method does work well if you follow the basic guidelines and you carry it out at the right time.



Over The last 4 years I have carried out this method and it does work very well. I made some big mistakes when I first carried out this procedure but now realise my mistakes and this year after looking yesterday all my artificial swarms carried out in may have worked. I have good laying queens in all 5 I did.

Guidelines for successful artificial swarming.( refered to as AS)


Carryout AS on your bees when there is a minimum of 6 frames of brood, eggs and larvae and the other frames to each end of the colony are drawn out and full of reserves.

Put up a couple of swarm traps to help ascertain the optimum time to AS your bee hives. If you monitor your traps in the spring you will know what your bees are preparing to do!

If you find open swarm cells on the lower part of your hives carry out an AS immediately. If not, within the next few days. Those cells could be closed and the current queen gone within a week!

If you don`t think they are quite ready and the weather looks rainy and duff for the next week, leave it for now and look again in a few days time.

Always try and perform an AS when the bee numbers are at their maximum. The more flying bees back to the nuc the better the success rate.

I prefer the queen in the mother hive, that way she will continue to lay as normal as if nothing has happened.
If she goes in to the nuc then fine the bees from the mother hive will make a new queen but the chances of success are less, as most of your flying bees  are in the nuc. It may be too late if the queen is not missed for a couple of days and the best eggs most recently laid( that you selected) are in the Nuc.
Also you dont want to open your` nuc for 1 month in which time the queen has been laying and all the brood hatching in week 3 and 4 will initiate a swarm when you were not expecting it. This happened to me recently,fortunately I was there to see it happen and to catch the swarm, It may help to mark your queens to find her more easily. Yellow and white seem to last the longest don`t worry about the colours of paint matching the years , this is reality! and you are not a queen producer or supplier you only want to know where  the heck the queen is! Get a small queen holder or clip and put it in your pocket. If you see her and have that brief second to catch her, she will be safe until you have selected you frames and put her back in to the other hive. This also works well but it helps if you are experienced at finding the queen.

When selecting frames don`t brush  bees  in to the mother hive in an effort to keep the queen in the main mother hive. You need all the nurse bees you can get in the nuc to help run the hive in the abscence of the queen and organise the production of  a queen cell.

Don`t open the hive for at lease 1 month after you carried out an AS. If you must then use minimal smoke and be oh so careful you don`t break that one and only queen cell that is somewhere on the two middle frames (usually). Damaging the developing queen through your impatience  will cost you the colony.

Feed your developing colonies of bees  generously. It helps the other frames get drawn up very quickly and encourages a newly emerged virgin queen to mate well and start laying quickly when her colony is well stocked when she arrives on the scene after her 16 days of transformation.

AS is a great way to control your bees and is easy to do. you also learn an awful lot about your bees when carrying out this procedure.  Its  a great experince to create a new colony.
Have a go and enjoy .

Richard












 

A week of swarms and hot weather!

I have had an amazing week of swarms and challenges with bees that I have never had before.

First of all I had a second swarm at my own apiary, A classic swarm and luckily accessible, only 3 meters from  the mother hive and a nice height off the ground.
Easy to deal with and went in to its new full size hive with no problem at all and now seem to be drawing out comb at a rapid speed.

Ereac Swarm

On wednesday morning I went down to Ereac ( about 45 mins from Corseul) to collect a bautiful swarm that had appeared in a garden the evening before. I was there at 8 am in case the swarm moved on and when I got there  was luckily still there.

 The swarm was on the branch of a  hybiscus shrub and as you can see the weight of the swarm had caused the branch to bend over and touch the ground. This was not a problem and knowing that the bees had been there all night and were quiet I simply  cut the branch off (with the kind help of the property owner) the branch and simply placed it on top of the Nuc containing 5 frames . 4 of plain wax sheets and 1 of drawn up comb that had all been sprayed with sugar solution.

They seemed to be happy with the home I offered them. They soon filtered  in to the frames and then started Fanning on top of the box and also on the front landing strip.

Then slowly I closed off the top lid, causing them to revert to fanning on the front landing strip and the majority of the remaining bees then were called back in to the hive.

 The weather was hot  so I had to be quick. You have a dilema! Should you come back that evening and collect the hive when every single bee has returned to the hive and also run the risk of the whole lot absconding during the day or do you cut your losses and chose the right moment and close off the front.
Don`t  forget that when you put the frame over on the temperatur will start to rise to you havent got long before they may find it too warm.

I think I lost about 20 bees but all was well. I drove back to the apiary and left them there for about 15 mins before opening the front door and letting them out. They were so well behaved and simply in and out for a while before settling down.

Flying swarm.

Well I said I had been an amazing week. On my way to work after collecting this swarm I flew in to another swarm that was passing over the road I was on. Luckily I was not going to fast and immediatly adjacent to me was a small lay by, So I pulled over and took up the chase!.
I went through 2 gardens and 2 fields and simpy ran with the swarm. Its an amazing experience. The swarm stopped a couple of times , paused over a couple of buildngs, obviously not choosing each place as a possible resting place, and then moved on.
We got to a small valley and they simply vanished in to the top of some large oak trees and they were gone!
What an experience I will probably never see that again.


Swarm arrives at a swarm trap


With the weather being perfect after about 2 weeks of cool and wet the potential for swarms is large.


I checked this trap as I was passing the garden on the way to see another client. On the way back this is what I found.

  A beautiful swarm had cast and landed on the front of the trap

The big question was, why was it on the front of the trap and not inside. I was perplexed. Usually some bees arriving at a trap would  gather around the front of the entrance, or even virtually cover the trap, but they would  gradually move in to the trap.

I phoned up my beekeeping teacher who at the time was also up to his eyes in bees, told me that they may well go in on their own but it may take a day but if they don`t go in to the hive by the following day then I should take off the top of the hive and try and coax them like that.. So I left them alone and took some Pics for the album. I came back that evening and  they were even more clustered above the entrance. So the following morning I decide to try move them in. It was nearly a costly exercise. The minute I took of the lid and started brushing some of the bees in to the box, the bees initiate a mass take off. What a sight. The whole swarm was in the air and circling the garden. They went over the garden wall  and then came back and very fortunately, settled on a shrub in the garden. Again I was extremely lucky. They had chosen a lilac shrub about waist height.

So what next, Well I also had my swarm trapping box with me so that was my next weapon of choice. It was obvious they did`nt want to go in the Nuc that the scout bees had drawn the queen and the rest of he swarm to.
I waited until they had all settled and then put the box underneath them and gave a large shake and the majority went in. Then closed off most of the bottom door, leaving access and slowly turned over the box and put it on the ground.

Bees appeared at the front fanning nicely. This time the queen was in the box and at the moment, happy to be there. I closed off the box and lost about 10 bees but thats nothing to loosing a beautiful swarm!
I transported  them to the apiary and used the white sheet method to give them the sense of walking in to their own hive.

So I set up a ramp leading  up the the nuc box and I have chosen a nuc box because i felt that the size of the swarm did not merit a large hive and in this sized box it would probably get away quicker!
I tipped out the bees on to the ramp and just let them decide what they wanted to do.

They all climbed up well, straight in to the box

To cap all this activity, when I was pouring all those bees on to the ramp one of my nucs started swarming. It spewed out bees for about  2 minutes and they all took to the air in a  amazing spectacle. They headed off in to the nearby scrub so I followed them from a distance. Fortunately I was had another nuc spare at my apiary which I grabbed and ran with.
They settled after about 5 minutes on to a gorse bush. It was a good size swarm for a nuc box and I just took pot luck and just shook them off the bush straight in to the nuc. They immediately started fanning and going in via the front landing strip. I put on the lid and walked them back to the apiary where they are now installed. What a week! hope this weather continues like this.

Nuc box underneath gorse bush

Swarm at the Apiary and cut out.

 First swarm of the year.


I drove past my hives yesterday to find this lovely swarm hanging from a small hornbeam shrub in front of my hives. I can only assume it has come from one of my hives but I have artificially swarmed all of them recently and only found open queen cells in one hive so I am really confused as to where this large swarm has come from and also the volume of bees it has come with. The obvious thing to do was to put it straight in to a hive and because of the volume of bees I have decided to put it straight in to a 10 framed hive. I also had some spare frames from a hive I lost in the autumn so they instantly had comb and some honey on these two drawn up frames.
All went well and I managed spray most of the fames with sugar sirop and to get the hive right underneath the swarm, gave them a really good shake and all fell on to the top of the frames. I then watched as they all started filtering in to the frames.

Lots of bees then started fanning which usually says" come on in its ok to all the other bees or you can also have some comfort that the queen is likely to have been transfered in to the hive but its never a done thing thing until you see eggs laid in to cell. All seemed to be fine as I had to go out later that after noon to do the cut out described below so I left them in peace with a hurriedly put together feeder and a full load or syrop.

So later that evening and nearly dark, I drove past with another colony of bees that I had just cut out and there they were all again hanging on the same hornbeam shrub. This is typical of swarms, typically unpredictable!! They can look all well and happy in their new come and then they abscond.

Fortunately they moved back on to the same place as before. 

So What to do next?, well back to basics but as it was dark I simply just took the hive and put it back underneath them and left it there for the night. I came back the next morning and the weather was drizzly and colder but they were mostly all still there but with a few more of them were inside the hive and using it as a half way house.  I think one can assume at this stage that he queen was there, somewhere, as on the rear on the hive worker bees had started to draw up comb overnight, it was  also on the hornbeam shrub as well. It was obvious that thats where they wanted to set up home.  So later that day I had another idea.

I got hold of a white sheet and a board and as large plastic tray. I then carefully moved the hive away from the swarm, back to the place it was the previous attempt. Set up the board as a ramp in front of the hive and the covered this with the white sheet. I then took the large plastic tray put it underneath the swarm and gave the shrub a really good shake. All the bees then fell off in to the tray with very little flying around.  I then simply lifted the tray over to the ramp and then tipped out all the bees out on to the middle of the sheet.

Immediately they started marching up towards the entrance and in to the hive, one  by one stinger to antenna, with a good few on the ramp fanning  and calling the remaining up in the the hive. 

Within 20 minutes they were all in. It`s a really natural way to hive them and I think it has given them the feeling perhaps that this time, they have chosen their location themselves. Its almost as though they needed a bit of time to decide for themselves what they wanted and where they needed to be.

The next morning all is well. They are all still in the hive and all looks good this time.

 The previous evenings cut out

This is what we found when we opened the shutter of this property, a beautiful swarm that seemed to have arrived about a week before.  Luckily they had built comb  only to the top of the wall at this stage. Another few week and the whole thing would have been a lot more difficult.

So I my plan was to try and cut out the comb,  try and place it in to some frames and then I was banking on the fact that after this the majority of the colony would then sense the queen and comb were not there and follow their senses and move down the wall  to the new position of their  home, and thats exactly what I did.

With any swarm the first job is to assess the state of the swarm and the behavior of the bees. I knew they were only recently established  and at this stage they have very little to protect. Their queen usually has not started laying until about now and there`s not much comb to deal with. The bees seemed very well behaved. and the weather had actually turned out fine for the first time for a long time. This always helps.

I put a nuc box on the window sill and tied it to the railings. this worked really well and meant I had free hands to do the cut out. So First thing was to smoke the bees a little, this will also help ascertain their mood.
I thought it would be better to smoke the right hand side first, as that way I could remove each section of comb one by one and hopefully find the queen if possible. This is rare but I put a queen holder in my pocket just in case I saw her for a few seconds.

I made up some Dadant frames with some fairly taught rubber bands around them. Each time I cut a piece of comb out I simply lowered it in a frame and slid the bands across to hold them in position. On the third piece of comb, I remarkably found the queen, grabbed my clip and she just walked in. How lucky was that? This was actually the middle piece of comb that she had just started laying in to, as there was some 50 tiny white eggs in the centre of the comb. So I had the queen. At this stage, provided she is not damaged most cutouts  are easy. If you loose a load of bees its of no real consequence as long as the queen is safe she will commence relaying within a few days  and then the numbers of bees will soon build up again but its always best to get the maximum amount of bees possible so the colony can re-establish as quickly as possible.

Loading the comb sections in to the hive (shown above)

One last section to cut out, but this had no eggs, pollen or honey . Its interesting to note that if you look behind the ladder, on the under section of the granite lintel, you can see the previous position of the existing swarm that was there 2 years before. They are known to swarm to previous positions! QED

At this stage I was not sure what was going to happen. Was there enough swarm pheromone in the queen to get all the others to follow her in to the new position. I left her in the clip but placed the clip in to the hive and hung if on one of the frames. That way the other bees knew she was present. Its during a cut out that you may be better off with a bee vac and if I had left it another few days more before I  tried to remove this colony then they may not have been so easy to remove them.  Quite remarkably they just walked down the wall, in to the nuc containing their existing comb and queen.

All comb removed and a very little smoke to move them on their way.

Bees marching down the wall!

A bit of a mess here but generally all moving towards the front of the nuc and marching in.

The last bees move in.

You can see some of the bees fanning with their bottoms in the air , producing the nasanov pheromone from a gland under their wings. The fanning of their wings sends this up in to the air, calling the others in. This is one of the most beautiful things you can see in nature. The smell is quite overwhelming!

Within another 20 minutes they were all in. I simply closed the front lid and we had our colony.
I then transported them to my apiary and let them settle for 10 minutes and then opened the lid and let out the queen in to the colony. Job done!
The next day I actually transfered them straight in to a 10 framed hive and also gave them a bit of brawn up comb to help the get their colony up and running faster, needless to say a feeder as well.

Amazingly in less than 24 hours of their arrival at chez moi, they had started building comb to the top of the frames I had placed their original comb in to. They are obviously happy and just want to get on with re building.
 I have done a video of this whole cut out but it needs some editing. As soon as I can I will post the link here.
Many thanks to Miranda Bell     http://jardinmiranda.blogspot.fr/      firstly found this swarm and secondly was the only person to get stung  while filming and taking many photos but it was an accidental sting as a bee had gone down her glove when she removed it. Thanks Miranda.
22 May
Heres some footage of the bees moving in to their new home I only have included the final few minutes at this stage but it gives you some idea of the noise and volume of bees  http://youtu.be/s8XWq6ZtlqY

Artificial swarms and some honey!

Well it's amazing how things can turn around in a couple of weeks. With the slightly better weather we have had over that last couple of weeks and all the moisture from the previous 2 weeks before that, we now have some decent nectar flow. I am only taking honey from 2 hives this spring but when I had a look at these 2 hives last friday, to my surprise both supers were nearly full.  In my excitement I have added another super to each hive and even though I am not expecting these two additional supers to be full by next week ( which is when i intend to harvest) it hope fully will give the 2 hives more space until next saturday when I intend to harvest and also artificially swarm the two hives afterwards. I have also given them some brand new supers to get to work on, which  will make them more attractive to fill up for the summer honey and hopefully will be putting these supers  back on,  around the first week of june or as soon as the oil seed rape has finished flowering.

I carried out performed 4 artificial swarms which seemed to have gone well, but i will not look inside the nuc until a clear 4 weeks have passed in order to give the new queen all the time she needs to get her act together and start laying.

I have also received a call this week from a friend who has found a swarm of bees that has now turned in to a small colony, behind a shutter of a house she looks after. So this coming thursday I will be going to cut out this swarm and place the "football sized " nest in to a nuc or hive depending on its actual size and condition I find it in. All very exciting and also a nice early swarm which should  also be ready for the sumer honey crop.
I will be filming it and also taking pictures so stay posted and all will be revealed probably over the next weekend. But before I get too excited I will see what I find when I get there.
RE My swarm Traps,
 Now I have heard of a swarm from early last week ( probably around then) I am going to start to watch my swarm traps more closely. I have seen a few bees around many of them already so thats a good sign a gives you more encouragement after all this cool weather.

The other bit of good news it that we have nesting barn owls on our house box. I managed to get a few seconds of the female last week and have posted it on u tube. she is rather cute!

Heres the link.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAAwq8GJuGs&feature=channel&list=UL



Richard

Bad weather and no honey!

I manages to get a quick look at my bees last sunday between the frequent rain showers. Not one single drop of honey in any of the 3 supers I had place on 2 weeks before.
The problem is we have had plenty of rain but the temperatures are still around or below  14 degrees making any appreciable forraging difficult. I have 3 fields of rape seed oil in full flower around my bees but the bees just cant get there and if they can, the temperature is so low the pollen in not ripe and the nectar flow is also low.  When we do have a lull in the wind and the sun comes out  there is for a few minutes a mad dash to the the nearest flowers. This results in huge clouds of bees suddenly appearing and the returning just before the next shower comes. Its actually a really interesting site to watch.

On the plus side the colonies are doing very well. They have all started  drawing up the 1st and 10th frame that I swapped in the spring . This  shows that the colonies need more space and are edging to the etremities of the hives to find it.
There is a large amount of brood in each hive . I think that my queens have been laying continously for the last 3 weeks. Its obvious therefore that there is plenty of food / pollen to supply the needs of the hive but there is not excess to start storing in the supers above.

I have decided I am going to remove my honey supers, allow my bees to become cramped and this will then enduce swarming. This time last year some of my hives had swarmed and then I artificially swarmed the others. Due to the amount of rain we have recieved its looking much more likely we will have a good nectar flow during the fowering of the chestnut trees,  So I am hoping to artificially swarm all my colonies in the next week , create some bees and then leave the bees build back in numbers before the best quality honey comes along.

Artificial swarming.

For those of you who dont know  very briefly, Artificial swarming is a technique employed by beekeepers during the spring and summer. It basically allows a beekeeper to create a new colony of bees for free and stop your bees from swarming at the wrong time..

Personally I dont usually collect spring honey and instead I let my bees build up in numbers in the spring and when they swarm or are about to swarm I go through my hives and artificially swarm them, making the bees think the queen has gone. The bees then, in their noble effort to save their colony take an egg less than 3 days old and feed it royal jelly exclusively and then produce a new queen. She then hatches out in 21 days and after she has run the gauntlett of mating flights she returns to the colony and starts laying eggs as the new queen This takes usually just over 3 weeks.
I will be doing a "how to perform an artificial swarm in my next blog." As usual you need to know all the nuts and bolts of the technique to get it right. I have done it fro the last 4 years and only started getting it right last year.
I will also be monitoring my bee traps around my colonies closely as a guide to how far advanced the preparations for swarming are, but this is really a guide and a lot depends on other factors.

Well its still howling and lashing with rain here. The promise of warmer weather for this week has changed to possibly next week and certainly nothing in the next 2 or 3 days but we must not forget this is normal weather for brittany, we have just been spoilt for the last 2 springs!

Making A Honey Super

Making a Honey Super

Well I have a bit of time on my hands( so to speak) as I had an accident with a chainsaw the week before last. Thankfully a very close shave and  no permanant damage to Nerves or tendons but at least three works off work, while the minor opp has time to heal!
This afternoon I decided it was time to try and make up a honey super. I`ve had the wood and all the parts for a while in my shed but not had the time to put them all together. I have previously been occupied with getting swarm traps ready and now thats completed and 22 out of 25 are out, I am feeling as though I am catching up a bit!

The sizes are the same in overall width and breadth but the depth of a honey super is roughly half that of a Dadant 10 frame, only 17 cms deep.

 I also fit a band or wood around the upper middle outside of the super. This is better than handles and allows easy moving and stacking . When they are full of honey they are very heavy indeed!

Ply Inner sections.

To make it a bit easier and quicker I already had one side of a hive ready made so I cut that in to two, making the two longest sides of the super and used slightly thinner ply for the two inner pieces of wood that support the honey supers. The other beauty of using ply for the inner pieces is that rather having to get the normal wooden sides rebated to take the frames, I was able to cut it to the desired depth with a hand saw and then use a chisel to just lift out the ply to the required depth.
All in all quite a good result for a couple of hours work. I will be using this super next week. I am intending to place this super in order that the bees draw up the frames so I can re use it for the sumer honey which is really the only type of honey as far as I am concerned.

It looks like the weather may be starting to warm up towards the beginning of next week. Fingers crossed. That should give the bees about 3 weeks of foraging in a good nectar flow from the oil seed rape. Up until now we have had the moisture but the daytime temperatures for the last 2 weeks have been between 11 and 15 degrees. Not nectar gathering weather!!!

honey super with wax foundation on.

Made a second super as I had the ply, but need to buy some additional super frames, but its painted up and ready to go!