Saturday 23rd July
Mandy and Peter went to the apiary to do inspections on the original stocks and their swarm and/or split offspring.
They were joined by Stephen who has kept bees in London and is now hoping to do the same locally.
Stephen was interested in find out about local beekeeping and was able to give us a hand with the inspections.
We have been a bit slack with doing regular inspections due the weather, lack of manpower and the hiatus of the new stocks arriving recently.
This meant that several of the original stocks have swarmed in the meantime. A couple of swarms have been caught at the apiary so that wasn’t a disaster.
Hive 1, which had always been the least strong, had surprisingly swarmed. The new queen had just started laying and we found and marked her (white).
Hive 2 also looked like it had swarmed. There was no brood to be seen. However the bees seemed happy going about their business. We didn’t see a queen but we decided from the bees attitude that there was a new queen and that she would start laying soon. This hive needs to be checked for a laying queen next time.
Hive 3 was a split from Hive 5. There was sealed brood in here but the frames with brood were super frames (the queen in hive 5 escaped into the supers before the split). The bees had made lovely natural combs under the super frames but that meant the queen had plenty of places to hide. This colony wasn’t strong and will need some TLC.
Hive 4 was another case of a swarmed colony where the queen had just started laying. Stephen spotted the new queen and we marked her (white).
Hive 5 was a skyscraper of double brood and 4 supers! We saw brood in the top brood box so didn’t go any further since this one was obviously queen right.
We combined the supers so that there are 2 that are well filled and a third for the bees to use, and one removed. So down from skyscraper to tower block.
All the hives have some stores and spare super frames. If we get some decent weather the bees might make good use of the lime trees that have just started to flower.
We then looked at a large swarm that had been caught and hived. There were plenty bees and again the queen had just started laying. This is a colony that can be sold on to cover some apiary costs.
Lastly, the other split from old hive5 has been in a poly nuc for a while and is struggling, particularly at the moment from cheeky wasps who have chewed into the back of the box to tap into the feeder and are also being a nuisance at the entrance. We decided this one needed to get taken away from the apiary so it has gone away to Mandy.
All in all the 5 main colonies seem to be queen right and given decent weather should build up fine with their new queens.
Peter.