Rain, rain and more rain

Still no interest in the Super from the bees apart from them chewing more holes in it. I eventually rang my bee mentor, Norman to ask him how I can get them to start drawing out the wax foundation.

He thinks the problem may be weather related. The bees dont need to draw out the foundation in the Super as they have nothing to put in it. There is nothing to put in it because the rain means they are not flying and there is not much nectar. They are nibbling the foundation because they are then taking the wax down into the brood chamber to store. This all sounds quite plausible, especially as we noticed in our inspection on Monday that the stores have reduced slightly in the brood chamber which does seem to confirm that they are using these up.

Apparently we could pour some syrup over the frames to encourage them to come up, clean it off and then draw the wax out. I am not sure if we will do this yet - perhaps if we have a run of clear weather.

We never actually expected any honey this year, we are just being greedy! Although it would be nice to go into next year with the super frames ready drawn so we can have a head start.

I still havent done a varroa check - but I have at least read the varroa leaflet that Robin brought round and I have bought some sticky paper. If it could just stop raining for long enough for me to put my bee suit on I might actually get out and do it!

Two more bee blogs. One is in the Daily Telegraph Gardening section - they have now created a whole beekeeping section - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/beekeeping/
I particularly like this one as Ian Douglas also started out with a nucleus in June.

The other is the Farming Today bee blog - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/the_farming_today_bees/ which is also good although I suspect the real beekeeping is being done by others behind the scenes!

Not so busy bees

The almost constant rain has meant we haven't been near the bees since putting the Super on and I was expecting to find that a few frames would be nicely drawn out by now. Instead, on removing the crown board a pitiful number of bees were in the super, and not one single frame has been drawn out. In fact, there are several holes in a few of the frames where it looks as if the bees have been nibbling at the foundation.

Why???? Admittedly, when we put the super on, I managed to drop quite a few of the frames - did this damage them in some way and the bees are voicing their concern? Or can they just not be bothered? Is it the effect of ten days of rain?

We need to do a proper inspection this afternoon (assuming the rain stops) so at least we can check that all is normal in the brood chamber.

One last thing - I have found another bee blog - http://beehivejive.wordpress.com/
Not sure how often it is updated but another beginner!

Adding the Super

On checking the bees on Monday, we found that they had drawn out and used almost every brood frame and were clearly desperate for some more work to do. This presented a slight problem as the Super was still sitting (in bits) on our kitchen table.

Liam got to work with the Super and I did the frames. Despite getting bits upside down, the wrong nails and many varied sets of instructions on the internet, a super with 11 frames (of sorts) was ready and put on top of the brood chamber on Tuesday.

Putting in the castellated spacers
Robin had recommended castellated spacers - which should make it easier to check and move the super frames.







Checking the frame fits!