2 hives left

Sep
26
2016
by Maria | 0 Comments

Went walking on Thursday, were home the rest of the day, bees flying, Friday we went cycling in the morning, later stayed at home bees flying Hive A was behaving a bit strangely, there were bees trying to get into the other two hives and were met with force in front and chased off, Hive A just looked as they had bees behind the door waiting for introders to come in lack of activity should have really been enough, Saturday the 24.9 we were home, came to the hive first thing in the morning, looked at the floor which had a number of bees, dead bees on the floor, knocked on it, no noise. Checked the other hives they were buzzying. Waited for the weather to get a bit warmer just in case, opened it and no noise because there were no bees in the hive, it was totally empty, except for stores some of which were capped, second super had 2 frames of capped brood, some ready to come out, and 2 capped Queen cells. Spoke to a friend who said it is some virus, has happened to some of his friends, to clean the hive burn the comb if I don’t want to clear it, desinfect it and move on.

So that was my biggest colony, I have 2 hives left one pretty strong one, one slightly weaker one.

Pretty annoyed with myself. Not sure whether this was CCD Colony Colaps Disorder. or the bees Absconding, but this is what happened the year before last when my two hives got robbed and the last absconded, so why, what am I to learn from that?

The two hives that are left stil have the feeders from 17th of Sept. E had 12 kg C 5kg, they are taking the last syrup really slowly, and I am planning to give them any more after that, bees are coming back with dark orange and soft yellow pollen, the dark orange will be from the Crocuses they look amazing, two fields above the hives are full with them. They have reduces entrances and C has a little bit of moss stuck in the entrance as well to alow 1-2 bees to go through, Hive E had that as well – they took it of, C left it and so am I.

 

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Feeding and fighting

Sep
14
2016
by Maria | 0 Comments

I have 3 hives now, my little hive fought on and on, I made a mistake of putting syrup onto the frame and then opening it to give them some water with this I watched the Queen come to the top and fly away, so I am guessing, they have been planing it, as they did not have stores, what they had, was being pulled away, by robbers I guess, and they could not been feeding her to be able to fly. A day later after this I saw a cluster of bees by one of the hives, once I “raked” it I saw the Queen in the middle so I put her and the few bees surrounding her into a Nuc, left them over night, took the Nuc and stuck it away from the rest into the garden, this is their second day there is a few bees flying in and out, I am going to have a look on Friday, they are forecasting rain on Saturday so  I thought if they are in there and working I will help them out a little. Most people would think this as a waste of time, I am reluctant to just let them die.

The rest of the hives have been treated with Hive Clean for the las time on the 12th of September, and the Apivital feed seems to be going down Hive E has had 10kg, Hive C 5 kg, Hive A has 8 kg.I give them 2 kg and they usually take it in two days, depending on the night temperature.

Want to have a look at them before the weather changes just to make sure things are ok, I believe I had some robber bees trying to get in, I have to reduced entrances now and the colonies are relatively strong and not allowing anyone to go past which is a really good sighn as I always seemed to have suffered with robbing.  The raspberry patch next to the hives seems to be the favourite place over the last week or so for the bees, they are really enjoying the autumnal raspberries. We shall enjoy the fruits thanks to them.

I will keep you posted on the progress.

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Feeding Bees,

Sep
05
2016
by Maria | 0 Comments

I gave the bees the last of the Apifonda paste that I purchased earlier this year. Most of the bees have taken it, except for my C hive which still has a couple of little lumps of it.

I have also treated them with Bee Vital Hive Clean for the second time, I have one more treatment to do, they should be pretty much Varroa free after that.

I am also going to feed them with what they call inverted sirup, sirup specially made for bees, I have found a seller reasonably close to us, so we went there and bought 50l of this sirup made by Apivital. This is the first time that I am going to use inverted sirup so we shall see, but when I used the paste I did not have any problems with robbing, fingers crossed it is the same with this.

The couple from whom I bought the Apivital, keep bees as well, they have 200 hives, when I asked him how his bees are doing this year, he told me that he is not going to get any honey from them this year,he had to buy in honey for the shop, I have bought a jar of honey from them as well. So this year has not been that great for them, it looked promissing prior to the middle of July and then things changed dramatically.

For now I have one weak hive, I am going to feed them with Apivital slowly and I still have some Bee Strong from Bee Vital which I am going to give to them, I need to boost them up, the rest will get Apivital about 15kg each. The only hive with a little bit of honey is Hive A, they are doing to best, but I am not going to take anything from them. I want them to get strong.

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Reducing the hives

Aug
22
2016
by Maria | 0 Comments

Checked the hives last week,  the only hive with 3 supers is hive A, they are actually looking really good.

Hive C, my stropy hive is down to 2 now, I thought they would expand but upon checking it out, I have decided they have enough room in the two supers without having to heat up the 3d one.

Hive B has two supers, seems to have settled in.

Hive E and D are back to one super and mostly occupying the middle of it.

Keeping an eye on them all but they all seems to have sorted themselves out again, the Queens are laying but not a lot, the bees are busy getting out, as and when they can, the last two days have not bee that great for them but as soon as it stops raining they go out again. It is suppose to be good weather now for a few days.

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Feeding = Robbing

Aug
01
2016
by Maria | 0 Comments

I am starting to think that this is going to be the case every time I feed my bees. Firstly once I started feeding I reduced the entrances, on the small hives I actually put in my entrance reducers with small entrance for 1 or 2 bees, just in case there is interest by other bees,insects. At the beginning it seemed to go unnoticed and then things changed. I firstly gave food to just two hives, the smallest. Then I did an inspection and realized that out of the 6 hives I only had one hive that had some stores in and they were forecasting really bad weather so I gave them about 500g of Apifonda each, after the robbing episode, I gave them a couple of days, closed of the hive that had the most problems, my newly made up hive and added 200g of Apifonda, left them closed for 3 days, on day 3 they were rather loud, it was sunny, they were no bees around this hive. I opened it up, few bees came out, some bees took away dead bees, for the rest of the day they were reasonably calm, the next day I fear there was an intereset by other bees, but this time I just left it, they used up the food I gave them, they still have a capped Queen cell, and they seemed much calmer. I am hoping to open it up either this week or next and have a quick look and take of the feeder, as they are building underneath it and I don’t really want them to so it will be better if it does not stay there very long. I have also given 5 hives Bee Vital Hive Clean a 15ml dose for Varroa as I have noticed a few Varroa mites here and there.

We have had a few weeks with unsettled weather, but who has not?, there are wild flowers in the fields that got cut, plus wild clover, Priganum. In our garden we have Echinacea, Monarda, Origanum wild and yellow, Rudbeckia, Campanula, Hyssop blue and pink, Lavender, .. but I supposed there still is not that much, or even if there is, it has been too wet, or too dry. I don’t know, sometimes I think I am fighting a loosing battle. Or I am trying to hard. ? I don’t know whether this is possible but I don’t want to teach the bees to be “lazy” and bring them food if and when they run out of stores. I need to learn to ignore them. The last time I fed them and closed them I told myself that I am away for 3 days, and even though I went and looked at them I worked hard not to do anything. That is what I will do learn to ignore them from time to time, I like to think I am much better than what I used to be and don’t constatnly open them up or prod them about. I do like to watch and Mike build a nice seating area under a tree so you can see the bees hives with entrance, their comings and goings, I like to sit there and watch. First picture is from Hive F before the robbing last week, the next picture is from the Apiary with the seat.

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Fed two hives,

Jul
19
2016
by Maria | 0 Comments

Decided that I am going to feed my two smallest hives,

Hive B and F got a handfull of Apifonda last night, around 10pm, it was relatively warm about 14 degrees, it was drizzling. I opened the hive, the bees were calm, I put the food near them, as close as I could and put a paste feeder up side down on the food and then put the plastic cover on top so they could not go through the circle in the middle. they went straight to it. I decided to do it mainly as we have had a week of cold and rainy weather there is not that much stuff in the country side that is flowering right now and the tow hives are small and weak as they had no stores when I inspected them on the 15th. We have levander, echinacea, ligularia, digitalis, origanum, monarda, hyssop, campanula flowering right now but due to the weahter they really did not go mad, there was a few going out during the drizzling periods but they were few and far between.

Hoping to check on the bees next week, the weather is suppose to even out and get nicer and warmer again.

I had to put entrance reducers on both the hives plus the mesh in front the entrance as Hive F was strangly buzy with bees. Soon after the mesh was put in place it all calmed down.

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Bees

Jul
17
2016
by Maria | 0 Comments

I did an inspection on the 5th of this month,

my biggest surprise was hive E, I honestly thought that would be doing really well until I opened it on the 5th, took the top super away as they really were not doing anything in there, most of the stores that they had are gone, I am guessing the Queen layed lots of eggs, there were not many flowers to pick nectar from, the limes did not flower as much this year as they were hit by a frost so they ate what they had.

Hive B had brood, very little stores, Hive F bees were nice and calm, did not see the Queen and did not see eggs, just in case added a frame of capped and larvae from hive C.

Hive C 4 frames of stores, really nice colony, usually get a bit jittery if I have their hive open too long, but they are strong, go out in any weather.

Hive A a few frames of stores in their third super, looking good.

Hive D still sticking to working, laying in the middle of the supers, very little amount of eggs and I did not see the Queen, really need to check this coming week whether they have eggs in there, gave them Bee Vital Hive Clean on the 7th in the evening, it was quite cool I just opened the hive and gave them 15 ml of Hive Clean, the only hive with some Varoa.

20160705 003 20160705 008 20160705 011 20160705 015 20160705 018 pictures from various hives, the second pictures has a Queen on the frames, the other three are with stores.

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Cat and her friends

Jul
17
2016
by Maria | 0 Comments

Our newest addition to the crochet menagerie

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Posted in Projects

New Hive “F”

Jun
13
2016
by Maria | 0 Comments

Last night we shuffled the hives a bit to make a space for one more hive, Hive F, the only hive which really took umbridge to being moved was hive C, they really came out in droves investigating and buzzying around, it did not last too long as we did it nearly at dusk.

This morning started off with heavy cloud, drizzle, rain, and then sunshine appeared and it warmed up so I decided I would give them a go. It sort of clouded over and sort of drizzled but we continued, the bees were in good nature, very calm, not aggresive, came and investigated me a few times, one tried to sting but did not have much luck and then it gave up, I managed to work without gloves again, and it is so much nicer. I still keep a pair of gloves in my pocket just in case. Started of with the smallest one Hive B

20160613 005 20160613 004 The cleanest frame is a foundationless frame, put that there instead the frame which had the food in.You can see the Queen in the second picture, she is doing better than before, still not laying as drastically as she should be but I am going to let them to sort things out. Took out the entrance reducer.

Hive C, I took a frame of brood, capped and uncapped from 2nd super, it has 4 QC in it, they are all empty, also took a frame from 3d super with honey – uncapped plus nursing bees. Ohterwise it has 2nd super nearly filled with brood, 3 d super has 4-5 frames with honey stores.

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Hive A, saw the Queen, they have nice capped honey in the 3d super, I took a frame of brood and capped honey with nursing bees.
Hive D, the first super has 4 frames unoccupied by brood or stores, found a frame with QC in it so took that, it has brood, capped and uncapped plus some drones and put it into hive F.

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Hive E, 4th super, some bees in, not doing that much to it yet, 3d super stores, 2nd super frames with brood, capped and uncapped found a frame with QC and brood, took that and a frame of stores and put that into F, plus nursing bees.

Hive F, has 1 new frame, 1 foundationless, frame of brood +bees, stores from C, frame of brood + bees and stores from A, frame of brood + bees from D, frame of brood + bees and stores from E, 1 foundationless frame, 1 new frame. We shall see. I opened the entrance.

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Picture of our garden well some of it, isn’t it amazingly green??? Mind you, warmth and rain, an amazing growing medium.
Last picture is of my newest Crochet cat that I made for a friend of ours.

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Busy Bees, …

Jun
05
2016
by Maria | 0 Comments

I have checked the bees since my last post, they have been really busy and doing reasonably well.

I am due to check them again sometimes this week but the hives up to date are as follows.

Hive E now has 5 supers, the last one was added on the 3d of June, they are doing really well.

Hive B, got another frame of brood with bees this time, did not shake any of it, just picked up a frame with capped and some opened brood and stuck it in this is what it looked like I did this on the 23d of May, took it from hive C

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Hive C – received a super with 4 foundationless frames inside, doing really well, Queen laying nicely.

Hive A – they still have enough space for expansion without the need of adding any more supers.

Hive D I had to move the frames around as they just wanted to go only up and not sideways, so I scattered it a bit.

 

They have been really well behaved,I wanted to check the hives one morning and they soon let me know it was not going to be so I backed away to return later on, it was a much easier decision to do it later.

The garden has suddendly sprung into action, we have had rain most of the days on and off and reasonably warm weather so perfect for growing, I have my fist poppy in flower and it looks gorgeous even though it is its third day and its nearly finished, more to come, we are getting ready to scythe the fields just really planning for a 5 day dry patch, not sure whether we can get it this week.

I have planted up the courgettes, yellow and green, in the currant/goosberry bed it is a bit of a test we shall see how well they will work together. I seemed to have overplanted the cucumbers but if need be the animals will eat them. The lettuces are finally doing something as are the tomatoes, it took them 3 weeks to germinate. Wicked.

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