Apiary Visits

Association apiary, Barns: activity at apiary on 4^th June

Mentors were David Ferguson and Mandy Clydesdale: with an excellent mix of this year’s beginners, keen beekeepers with a couple of years’ experience, one Interested Party, and 2 youngsters – great to see them all. Young Sam had a new beesuit, and is always very hands-on, so long as the open hive is low enough for him to see!

Hive 1: queen seen, no queen cells seen, should be OK till next week. Has an additional brood box on it for drawing out foundation.

Hive 2: 4 queen cells seen: two were removed, and a nuc formed from the queen and 3 frames of brood/stores: additional house bees were shaken in to increase her workforce. (Nuc 3, beside the storage cupboard)

Hive 3: Ok, no queen cells seen, progressing well.

Hive 4: checked, OK, no queen cells, queen not seen but brood visible

Swarm (next to fir tree, not allocated a number yet): clustered well together, drawing on the foundation – beautifully demonstrated by these girls! Might need the box turned through 90^o; an empty supper and a feeder added.

Hive 5: brood seen, has an unmarked queen, needs to be found and marked. 3 queen cells removed. Hive prepared for moving.

Hive 6: Queen not seen, no larvae, but bees calm – probably have a newly mated queen who is not laying yet. Hive prepared for moving.

Nuc 1: has died out, soiling suggests that they succumbed to nosema, the nuc was split from a colony that also had developed nosema (not confirmed by analysis). Unfortunately there is currently no treatment (medication) for nosema other than replacing combs (eg Bailey comb exchange: it had been too early in the year to do that), or requeening with a queen from a different(and hopefully more resistant) strain. The nuc box will be cleaned and sterilised with washing soda, the frames and wax burned.

Nuc 2: coming on well, brood seen: but they had outgrown their nuc box (drawn comb surrounded the feeder) so they were transferred to a brood box, with a super and feeder on top.

Nuc 3: formed this week from Hive 2.

Need to purchase: 1 brood box (minimum – this was before the requirements for 2 brood boxes at The Glen were requested on 8^th June), minimum of 3 deep frames with foundation; 8 shallow frames with foundation.

Next week: 11^th June

Hive 1: remove the additional brood box – to go to The Glen.

Add supers if necessary; identify the next series of hives for moving; identify any nucs/colonies ready to go out to new beekeepers.

Check status of each hive, and confirm that here’s a laying queen – all the colonies there should now have swarmed or else have been split, so should be building up for the main crop in July.

Check that all have stores in case the “June Gap” leaves them short of forage.

Nucs 2 & 3 may need more syrup until the foundation is drawn out.

Swarm: may need box turned through 90^o , and more syrup in feeder, until more foundation drawn out – weather forecast is not good, so they may not be able to get out to gather nectar. It can have its own hive number allocated, unless it is going out to a new beekeeper.

We aim to visit the Association Apiary weekly on a Sunday from 2pm to 4pm – weather permitting.

If we need to cancel due to the weather, Mandy will email by 11am, so please check your emails.

Sessions will be led by an experienced beekeeper. This session will be led by David and Mandy

Beginner beekeepers are encouraged to come along to learn practical skills.

Car share if you can as parking is limited, you can let Mandy know if you need or can offer a lift, or if you need directions.

If you need to borrow a beesuit for the visit please contact Mandy – we have some available, and even 2 child size suits.

We usually have refreshments after apiary meetings, so please bring something along; guests are welcome too.

If you are able to come along and be the lead or assistant beekeeper for one of these sessions, please contact Mandy as soon as possible so she can work out the rota for the rest of the summer. Guest demonstrators also welcome!

Barns apiary 28/05/2017 enjoyable meeting on Sunday: the highlight was probably Jim Burns climbing a tree to retrieve a swarm!

Dave Stokes and West Linton provided the picnic (including the traditional cheese sandwiches on homemade bread, accompanied by homemade pickled onions, of course). There was plenty to do checking out the bees and seeing how they’d come on since last week.

Picnic

All the hives are correctly numbered, and their details recorded.

1: Checked for queen cells – none seen

2: Checked for queen cells – none

3: Shallow frames in brood box cleaned of drone brood and 1shallow frame (with brood and eggs) put in super above queen excluder. Queen cell seen – this frame together with 2 other frames (including one shallow, which was well laid-up) were removed to make nuc2. Eggs and larvae remained in brood box.

4: Sealed queen cell seen (14th May) 2 weeks ago, no queen seen, nor new brood/eggs, frame of eggs added from hive 1 just in case.

5: Colony left again, ill-tempered and much activity at front, possibly about to swarm/swarmed.

6: Frames drawn out but no larvae/brood yet (queen & frames removed to make nuc on 7th May.

New super added.

Nuc1 created 07/05: no brood yet

Nuc2 created 28/05: from hive 3, including one shallow frame from brood box.

Swarm recovered from fir tree by Jim Burns, hived by Peter Stevenson on evening of 28/05.

Next visit (4th June): more deeps and shallows need to be made up and brought to the apiary.

Bring syrup to feed nucs and possibly swarm (to encourage it to draw out foundation, which could be harvested and stored for use elsewhere)

Buy 2 queen excluders

Bring bin bags and wax collection bucket

Change the hornet traps (syrup and attractant) already at Barns

Put on supers as needed

Check for new brood in 4, 6, nuc1, swarm: perhaps remove 1 or 2 frames of drawn comb (if present) and replace. Add super and feed if needed.

Attendees:
Peter, Helen, Julie, Mark, Richard L., Anne, Shirley, Richard B. and young Sam.

There was lots of looking hopefully upwards to the sky for the promised better weather to arrive as we assembled at the apiary.

The weather was cool, damp and breezy and it was touch and go whether we should go in to the hives. A few bees were flying so we decided to make a start and see how we got on.

We started with Hive 1 and the new beekeepers each had a go at inspecting the frames. There was a good healthy brood pattern throughout the main brood box and no signs of queen cells. There was also no sign of the queen, which was a pity otherwise we could have trapped her in the main brood box (there is a shallow box being used for brood underneath the deep box). However the bees were getting grumpier by the minute so we did not go through the shallow brood box. An extra super with foundation was put on top as the bees were spilling out onto the crown board looking for something to do.

Next we opened up Hive2, again to check for swarm cells, but the bees by this time were in quite a temper at having been disturbed on a cool Sunday afternoon and so we decided to call it a day. These were given a brood box to draw foundation last time but they have not obliged so far.

The bees ushered us off the premises in no uncertain terms and sadly were being stingy right over to the cars. The picnic was abandoned as Julie suffered a sting on the eyelid and Helen had to have a bee removed from her hair. Julie has since assured us that thankfully the sting didn’t cause too bad a reaction.

It was during this scene of mayhem that Matthew and Lulu (the landlords) happened to appear and tried to engage in a conversation about works to the apiary site.

Work is to start very soon so there might be some disruption to our planned schedule. So look our for updates here and by email.

Jobs to do next time:-
Hive 1 – Check for queen cells. Confine queen to deep brood box if possible and move shallow brood box to hive3
Hive 2 – Check for queen cells. Check
Hive 3 – Replace the 2 shallow brood frames in the deep brood box. If possible use the shallow brood from hive 1 to take these shallow frames and boost the population
Hive 4 – Check for new queen, ideally laying – sealed queen cells seen 2 weeks ago
This is where hive numbers get shaky. Hives now have numbers on them but the hive notes don’t necessarily match!
Hive 5 (the one next to the wall and shed). – Check for queen cells. May need super. 7th May frames were removed to make a nuc.
Hive 6 (the furthest from the gate). Check for new queen, ideally laying. 7th May queen was removed to make a nuc.
Nuc – Check for new queen, ideally laying.

Sorry no actual photos from the day but here’s one taken on a sunnier day:-

Barns on 14^th May and next visit 21^st May

Guest: Norman Jarvis, Border Beekeepers: has been keeping bees since 1996; was hoping to find a spare queen cell to take away but none found! He would be delighted to return in a fortnight!

The hives are now all numbered, apart from the nuc that was created on 7^th: a small QC was spotted in that, will need to be checked by 28^th or 4^th June to see that the queen is mated and laying.

All hives except 6 and 7 were checked.

1: Super added; and super with brood now underneath the brood box. Once brood has hatched, put this under 3’s brood box (see below)

2: No queen cells, queen seen, (re)marked & clipped. Brood box added ABOVE so bees can start drawing out foundation – this to be removed once some frames have been drawn out so that they can be used for nucs/swarms.

3: shallow frames in brood box  with unstable comb beneath, suggest removing the super from underneath Hive 1 as soon as it’s empty of brood, and putting this super beneath the brood box, with the 2 shallow frames (removing unstable comb first) until the brood in the shallow frames has hatched. This colony is producing very irregular comb, clean up, add fresh frames and enough dummy boards (in store cupboard) to close all gaps.

4: had 2 queen cells and few bees – left, inspect on 21^st or 4^th June

5: empty

6: nuc created from this, it should be acting as normal.

7: nuc created by this by removing queen and frames – this needs to be checked  by 28th or 4th June to see that the queen is mated and laying.

The paths and hives area has been neatly strimmed – thank you!

Runners for frames have been left in the store cupboard

AC took away one nuc box – a molehill had come up underneath it, the 3 frames inside were damp and mouldy, the interior was damp and had some soil in it; the exterior has been slightly strimmed on one corner. I’ll get some exterior filler and paint; clean the nuc box and fill it with fresh frames and foundation.

Taken away: Em MacKie took away one nuc box and one empty hive with frames, in preparation for splitting colonies at Kailzie.

Summary of the first of this summer’s regular Sunday meetings
The Association is developing a rota so that every Sunday we can have an experienced beekeeper on site, to check over the colonies and to help this year’s beginners who have been allocated a “foster” hive to look after.

At the Apiary

Three of this year’s beginners – Shirley, Ilknur and Brian – were allocated 2 of the hives to foster: Shirley and Ilknur opened the hives themselves and carried out the inspections with David and Mandy on hand to give encouragement. Excellent first attempts: and as both hives were very full of bees, they were split to form nucs. It’s now a matter of waiting, and counting the days until the new queens are due to hatch, fly, mate and then start laying eggs.

Spot The Queen

The aim is to keep enough colonies for a teaching apiary, and to produce nucs for beginners and active members, reducing the need to bring in bees from outside area (with the accompanying risk of disease).

The other colonies were checked – no queen cells were found, there was sufficient space and stores in each. One had already swarmed (sealed queen cells were found) and one looked as if it needed a little extra TLC.

Inspection

Jobs for the next visit: put hive numbers on the boxes, check the colonies for space, stores and signs of incipient swarming – create nucs from any that look as if they might swarm.

Next visit: (weather permitting) 14th May 2-4pm with Mandy and Janet: if you are coming and need to borrow a beesuit, please let Mandy know.
If we have to cancel at short notice, an email will be sent round at 11am, so please check your emails.

On Sunday 28th May we’re delighted to be welcoming West Linton Beekeeper’s Association, at our Association apiary, Dave Stokes might be persuaded to be one of the demonstrators on the day. We hope that other experienced local beekeepers will come along and be a guest demonstrator for one of the