Peeblesshire Beekeepers Association

Monthly Archive: June 2016

Apairy Visit Cringletie

June 19th: @ 2.30 near Cringletie

Visit to the apiary of Peter Stevenson and Helen Dewberry.

Meet just past the hotel on the left at the gravel parking area by the walled garden. Car share will be arranged from there as there is limited parking.

Please put beesuits on at the apiary. Do not park outside the hotel.

Please note: we usually have a picnic, so bring a suitable small item to share, and something to drink, if you want some. Parking can be limited at these sites, so please car share if possible – contact /">Secretary if you need/can offer a lift, or need directions.

Association Apiary Visit 12th June

The visit was cancelled because of the cool and damp cool weather conditions.

Peter took a load of kit out to the apiary so that its ready for when we can get out there next – hopefully in the week.

Mandy has been busy making up brood frames including a couple of nuc boxes.

The frames with foundation have been put in the stack of spare boxes by the side of the storage units.

Peter looked at topping up the syrup on the nucs. The poly nuc’s feeder was still half full so he didn’t open it to top up.

The nuc in the central hive was topped up with syrup. Its entrance block had fallen out and there were possible signs of robbing  – dead bees at the entrance and more activity than might be expected. Peter put the entrance block back in plus some extra grass to close the entrance better.

There is syrup in the storage sheds for future visits.

Apiary Visit 5th June

Peter

Checked hives 1, 2 and 3 for signs of swarming
Hive 2 had a charged queen cell but only that one was seen – there may be more but weren’t obvious. The queen cell was destroyed and a 2nd brood box with foundation added to give them more space. The queen was seen so they haven’t swarmed. Hopefully delayed them enough until next inspection.
Hives 1 and 3 looked fine with no queen cells (seen).
Lots of bees were flying in the warm weather. Some were a bit feisty, possibly from the new nucs that don’t have a queen.

Apiary Visit 2nd June

Mandy, David, Jo, Eric, Linda

Checked the very large colony – 2 supers about a third full, and one super where the queen had been trapped.
Checked carefully but didn’t see her in the super or either of the 2 brood boxes.
However, in total 3 frames from the super had queen cells with larvae in (about 6 days old) so the colony was split to provide 2 nucs (each with 2 queen cells, stores, syrup feed and extra workers: the brood box still has one queen cell left (as we didn’t find the queen, any eggs or very young larvae).
So we should have 3 young queens hatching out in a week or so: we’ll leave them alone for 3 weeks to give the new queens time to hatch, fly, mate and start laying.

Informal Pub Meeting 1st June

An informal chat about what’s happening at the association apiary, and beekeeping in general.

If you have any ideas for the association or questions about bees and beekeeping this is a great way to get information from other beekeepers.

The meetings are now at 7.30pm on the first Wednesday of the month in the back bar of the Neidpath Inn in Peebles.