Midsummer Musings

It’s been sunny in Bath this week, which should be good news for bees.  However, that hasn’t stopped them indulging in a bit of silly behaviour...

It was very warm on Saturday morning, so I decided to do the weekly inspection after breakfast.  In the blue nuc, things were quiet.  Too quiet, in fact - surely there should be more bees?  And where was the queen?  After spotting a couple of queen cells - with larvae - it became clear what had happened - the bees had taken advantage of the nice weather, and swarmed.  Oh well, I shall have to wait for the new queen to emerge in a week or so.

Laura’s hive is doing well, with lots of bees and brood.  They have finally started bringing in honey, though I don’t think the crop will be anywhere near last year’s.

On to hive number 2.  The good news is the brood looks healthy, and there’s no sign of the Sacbrood infection that they suffered from last season.  However, there were a few spots of bee poo on the frames, and one poor bee with poo on her wings.  It looks like the colony might have a case of diarrhoea.  There are a few different diseases that can cause this.  I’m going to read up on them this week, so that next week I can make a proper diagnosis and take the appropriate course of action.

At least I spotted the queen, and I took the opportunity to mark her with a dot of red paint.  She is laying, though there is only so much she can do as the bees are barely drawing any wax.  I wonder if I need to feed them next week, to get them building?

One odd thing - despite the colony looking quite sorry for itself, they’d still gone to the effort of making a queen cell.  I took the side off so that I could get to the larva inside, and took a photo before I scooped it out:

A queen larva

The colony is taking a long time to build up worker numbers.  There is about a frame and a half of capped brood - hopefully when these workers emerge, the additional workforce might mean more foraging and more comb building.

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye - Part Two

In Part One we left the bees in the blue nuc leaderless, with the new queen having unexpectedly flown off into the undergrowth.  With the as-yet unnamed queen MIA, what was I to do?

The answer, quite simply, was nothing at all.  There was no chance of me finding her outside the hive, so I had to sit it out and hope that she came back.

I waited until just after six o'clock, and then headed back to look inside the nucleus.  I checked one frame, then another, and another...  and....

Imagine my relief on spotting the queen wandering nonchalantly around on frame number 4.  I wonder if she enjoyed her unexpected day out?!  This time I decided to mark her using the queen marking cage, just to make sure that nothing could go wrong.  Here's a picture of the newly marked queen:

Having finally finished the job that I'd made a mess of earlier in the day, I removed the queen cell that I'd found earlier, and put the roof back on the blue nuc.

Later, at dusk, it was time to wave goodbye to queen Dorothy.  Jessica came over to collect the other (brown) nucleus and take it to the other end of St Mark's road.  Jessica decided to hive the bees straight away, which is unusual as I have always hived bees in the middle of the day.  I think it's fair to say, from the number of stings Jessica received, that the bees were unimpressed.  It's always good to try new things in beekeeping, but I think this will be the first and last time that I try to hive bees after sunset!  Nevertheless, I hope Dorothy and her bees settle in to their new home.

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye - Part One

Dorothy is leaving!  Though she won't be going far - fellow Widcombe beekeeper Jessica is going to look after Dorothy and her bees, at Jessica's apiary on Lyncombe Hill.  So yesterday, I'd arranged with Jessica for her to collect the brown nuc (Dorothy's colony) at dusk.  Bees will fly until sunset, so if you're ever moving a hive or nuc, it needs to be done at dusk, so that all the foragers have returned safety to the hive.

I popped over to the apiary at lunchtime, just to check that everything in the brown nuc was OK.  Yes - Dorothy was seen, and there are plenty of eggs and brood.

I then checked hive #1, just to make sure they weren't working on any secret queen-cell production programme.  Nope - everything in #1 was also as it should be.

Then, even though there was no need or reason to, I decided to take a look in the blue nuc.  This is the one with the unmarked queen who started laying a little over a week ago.  Everything looked OK, until I got to the middle frame, which had a six-day-old queen cell on it.  This was very odd - the queen has been laying for less than a fortnight, and the workers have no reason at all to making queen cells.  And yet, there it was:

I decided to leave it until I'd found the queen.  I spotted her on the next frame.  Since she was now laying, and there are sealed brood, I decided it's time to mark her.  I got hold of the marking pen (red, for 2018 queens) and got ready.  Normally I use a marking cage (click this link for photos), but last week I'd marked one of Ian's queens by holding her legs between my thumb and forefinger.  Having done it once, I decided to get some more practice and have another go.

Basically,  it's a four-step manoeuvre:

• pick the queen up by her wings
• transfer to other hand, and hold her by legs
• dot the paint onto her thorax
• put her back into the nuc (or hive)

The thing about picking up a queen bee is that they wriggle.  So you can't hold by the wings for too long, you need to transfer her to your other hand and hold her by the legs.  The important thing to note is her wing muscles are stronger than her leg muscles, so holding her by the legs is easier.  Well, I made the rookie mistake of holding her by the wings for too long, so of course she wriggled free and started wandering around on my right hand.

To rescue the situation, I tried to encourage her to walk onto my left hand, so that I could try to pick her up again.  She was having none of it - and promptly whirred her wings and took off!  I saw her disappear into the buttercups at the front of the hive and, despite frantic searching both inside and outside the hive, there was no sign of her.

In part 2, to be published later this week, I'll let you know how the story ends...

​Four of a Kind

Sunday’s inspection went well.  Hive #1 is growing steadily, and the brown nucleus is also doing fine.  I left hive #2 alone, as the newly-emerged queen was probably out mating.

So, that just leaves the blue nucleus.  Last week, I tried and failed to find a queen, though there were signs that one had emerged recently.  On Sunday I had another look.  The first thing I spotted was eggs - this is good news!  It means I definitely have a queen in there somewhere, and she’s finished mating and started laying.

She gave me the run-around for a bit, but I found her on the fourth frame.  So I’m happy to say that I now have queens in all four of my hives.  And on Sunday, I had seen evidence that three of them were laying.  Which brings me on to...

Update - Today

My curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to pop along to the apiary at lunchtime today and see what was happening in hive #2.  After what they've been through, the colony is small - but at least they are looking nice and healthy.  And... there are eggs!  Plus, I spotted the queen.

So, I now have four laying queens, and all my colonies are back on track.

About Those Photos I Promised...

I don't have any bee photos to show you, but - last year, local botany enthusiast Stew planted some foxgloves at the apiary (thanks, Stew!).  And recently, Nev (the bees' landlord) and I have been doing planting near the hives (along with some other groundwork).  So here are a couple of photos to show you how things are looking so far:

Foxgloves - a favourite with the bumble bees.

Some bulbs and flowers growing by the new path.  So many buttercups!