Planning ahead with ebay

Over the winter, Frome beginner beekeepers have been lucky enough to attend a series of evening courses run by Robin. These are pitched at a level above total beginner but below the basic exam course and have been extremely interesting.

Robin has encouraged us to think ahead and work out what we want to do if (when?!) we find Queen cells. Liam and I have decided that we would like to increase the number of colonies we have and take it to the dizzy heights of two hives.

Last week's course included a discussion on the different methods of swarm control. There are a couple of different approaches including the Pagden method (the BBKA recommended method) and a revised approach - Robin's "Safety First" method! We will be attempting the latter so more on this in a few months time...

Whichever method we use, we learnt that a nucleus hive would be useful - and that these are available on ebay from £35. I have accordingly just "Made an offer" on a nuc hive with a wire mesh floor for £32 plus £15 postage and had it accepted.

Next up is a second hive - I am hoping to find a second hand one at a local auction?

The bees are awake!

It is so nice to finally have something to post about! After a long winter with not very much happening (bar some oxalic acid treatment in December and an excellent candle making course with Robin - see separate post), my bees seem to be waking up again.

I have been hefting my hive every couple of weeks from mid Jan and had noticed last week that it was definitely lighter. Liam bought some fondant from the bakers in Frome (who immediately asked how many hives we had - he must have suspected something!) and we put it in the hive on Thursday. Up until then, we had seen no activity whatsoever around the hive - no flying bees, or visible guard bees etc.

This continued until Sunday when I went to check again. In the morning - nothing, despite the fact that it was a reasonably sunny day. I lifted the roof and inspected the fondant and was reassured to see they had taken some and seemed very busy in the hive at least. Later that afternoon I glanced at the hive and saw not only bees flying but about 20 bee corpses in front of it. It looks as if they had suddenly decided a spring clean was in order and had chucked out all the debris? For the first time since November, I could also see guard bees at the entrance and a few bees flying.

Hornets

I haven't blogged recently because I have had very little to say, but an article in the Mendip Times recently caught my attention. In the November edition, Chris Sperring wrote "Sting in the Tail" about European hornets. Apparently there has been a huge increase in these insects in Somerset in the last two summers. I can (somewhat unscientifically) corroborate this as I have seen three (one in our office and two somewhat alarmingly in our house) earlier this month, despite never having noticed them even in our garden before now.

The article was actually quite reassuring as apparently hornets are not aggressive at all (unless you are close to their nest) and are in fact the "gentle giant" of the wasp world. Has anyone else noticed an increase in hornets, and, do they pose a threat to our bees like wasps do in terms of robbing? The article states that 40 Asian / Japanese Giant Hornets (a non native species and not in UK) can kill 30,000 European Honey bees but makes no mention of the likely behaviour of the European hornet.

Feeding time is over...

The bees have finally stopped feeding. Or at least, I think they have... Liam checked the feeder over the weekend and the remaining sugar syrup had crystallized in the feeder. I am not sure if this is because the temperature caused it to do so, or because the bees were no longer feeding/moving it around. Either way, Liam was unable to lift the hive when he "hefted" it and so we have to assume they had taken enough. I believe there may be the option of giving them candy over the winter months if they look like needing it. I am trying to disturb them as little as possible so have not actually looked inside the hives at their stores for some time.

We have replaced the eke and the apiguard but this is really window dressing. I am not sure it will be doing anything in these temperatures?

On Friday this year's Beekeeping Course for beginners begins, so I will be returning to that and can no doubt ask all these questions there!

Still feeding...

Just a quick post to say that my bees are still feeding - we have now fed 2.5 gallons and it is still going down nicely.

I have also had to have my camera cleaned because it was covered in propolis but that's another story!

Feeding frenzy?

Slight panic over the weekend. We checked the bees last week to see how much syrup had been taken down after our faux-pas with the feeder. And the answer? None (again!) We drizzled more over them, around the opening in the crown board and poured some over the seams of bees. Still no interest. Robin then came around with a feeder made to his own design. Apparently, our eke was putting too great a distance between bees and feeder.

We were using the eke (made so proudly by Liam!) because of the apiguard and have now removed this, cellophaned it and will put back on once the feeding is complete. (Thank you for your comments by the way - this has reassured me that feeding should take precedence over the varroa for now).

Anyway, the new feeder has had an instant result. We put the feeder on around lunchtime on thursday and by the time we left for a weekend away at around 6 that evening, all of the syrup had gone and we had refilled it with another gallon of syrup. On our return on Sunday evening, they had finished all of that and so we refilled again this morning. (I will ask Robin if I can post a photo as we will definitely try to reproduce this for ourselves next year).

Now I am just waiting to see how much syrup the bees will take down. So far, we have fed 1.5 gallons.

Schoolboy error (or errors)

Hmm, a day after we put the feeder on, we couldnt resist going to see how much our diligent bees would have consumed.

As we lifted the roof, they continued in their extremely drowsy meanderings without paying us the least attention. NO syrup had been consumed, and we eventually concluded that we must have positioned the feeder incorrectly - misaligning it with the hole in the crownboard. It is now adjusted, we drizzled a bit over the top of the brood chamber to let them know it is there, and we will try and check it before the weekend.

And now for the second error... I was rereading Gerald Fisher's chapter on putting the bees to bed and he explains a little bit about the way Apiguard works. Apparently the thymol evaporates and is heavier than air. This means that it sinks to the bottom of the hive - and why you need either to have a solid floor - or have your tray in... Needless to say we dont (we had taken it out after the 2nd varroa check). So, does this render the first 4-5 days of treatment pointless and can we just get away with sticking the tray back in sharpish?!