The allotment bees

The allotment bees were all flying again today and have stopped throwing out their dead. I put some more feed on the hive in the top corner. That colony came from Thorpe.

Postwick, Thorpe, UEA and allotment apiaries

My Postwick apiary has not had a visit for some weeks now and as the bees were flying in allotment today I though I would visit both Thorpe and Poswick to see if the bees were flying OK.

Of the three hives at Thorpe the middle hive had far the highest number of flying bees and on inspection I saw that the entrance wasn't restricted or protected from mice . I quickly made an entrance block for it. The left hand hive with the old queen didn't have flying bees until it was distured - then it had plenty.

Out of the ten hives at Postwick one had only dead bees in it. I think it was failing the last time I put a bucket of feed on it as that feed bucket was still completely full today. I think the hive had a failing queen even then. It wasn't on an open mesh base.

The hive nearby with the old queen was flying well. That hive had two brood boxes and a super so I took off the super that was completely empty and smelling a little musty and put the full bucket of feed on instead.

I put the crown board from the failed hive on the hive that had the damaged crown board, even though the brood box I find is smaller and the correct size for a for a WBC hive.

I made a quick check of the UEA orchard hives and both had flying bees.

Allotment bees

The allotment bees were flying today. After several cold weeks the weather has suddenly warmed up and the bees took the opportunity to fly. Every hive on the allotment sites had lives bees in them.

I checked

Tina's hive
Furgle's hive
The UEA Permaculture Student's three hives
and nine hives on my plot

They were all showing sign of life and in the case of some of the hives on my plot death as well.

The bees were carrying dead bees out of the entrance. I removed the mouse guards from two hives (that really have small enough entrances anyway) and watched as dead bee after dead bee was carried out to join many more on the ground in front of the hives.

Neither of those hives have open mesh floors and judging by the effort it takes for a live bee to drag a dead bee out of the hive they both have too large an area for landing on I will have to cut them down next year.

The UEA Students Permaculture Society allotment

The UEA Students Permaculture Society allotment has three hives in the corner of the plot. The original hive there at the start of 2008 had a 2007 swarm in it and that swarm queen is still there in a 'kind of' WBC hive. The other two hives have 2008 daughters of the swarm queen. The feeder buckets were empty on two of the hives - the one with the old queen in and the colony in the new single brood box. The other colony is on a double brood system and still has some sugar in it. I removed the two empty buckets and covered the feeder holes with glass. There were live bees at the entrance of the double brood box hive.

http://patricklaslett.blogspot.com/2008/11/student-allotment-apiary-tinas-hive.html

There were empty buckets to remove on Tina's hive (live bees) and Furgles hive.

Feral bees

The feral bees from the car park had finished their bucket of feed. It's late in the year but I filled it and replaced it. Moving it down closer to the bees certainly seems to have made the difference.

http://patricklaslett.blogspot.com/2008/10/ferral.html

Being able to get close to the bees in order to feed them in the middle of winter is one good argument for taking them through the winter on a single brood box only.

Postwick and Thorpe

Postwick apiary has been due a visit for some time.

I went to the Postwick apiary to see if the food I left on the weaker hives had been taken. The first hive I came to has been under attack from rodents. Not through the front entrance as that was protected with a mouse guard but through the crown board. The crown board was old and rotting and the mouse (or maybe rat) had no problem ripping through the failing plywood. The bees were still there and having no spare crown boards at the apiary (they are all in the shed) I put a temporary board over the top to keep the critters out. I took the plastic feeder off. I noticed that the plastic bucket had also been chewed.

I filled the bucket on the swarm hive and put a mouse gard on Norman's original hive that still has his old queen in and pretty much left everything else be.

On the way back I payed a visit to the three WBC hives at Thorpe and put some sugar on the middle hive. Two of the three hives there still need mouse guards putting on.

Kerry's 'chimney' bees

Kerry's bees. As it was a nice sunny day I took a trip to see how Kerry's bees were getting on and to take him a new roof and feeder.

The bees seemed fine but had shown no interest in the feed. Maybe that was because there was a super to navigate through to get to it. I don't know. However I took off the super and transferred the syrup to the box feeder that will now be that much closer to the bees.

Electric Feral Bees

Electric Feral Bees. The hive was empty today.

If this had been earlier in the year I would have said that the queen had left. At this time of the year I fear the queen was killed by raiders and the workers bees had little option but leave with the raiders to join the queen in another hive.

There were a few dead bees on the floor - but not many. There was still a lot of honey in the frames so it wasn't a matter of the hive being cleaned out.

Electric Feral Bees

The Electric Feral Bees were not doing so good when I went to look at them today. There were bees going in and out of the hive entrance but too vigorously for my liking. Then I saw under the newspaper that overlapped the outside the broodbox was a cluster of very sad, unhappy bees.

I taped up the front.

Lifted of the super to find that the newspaper was intact and then removed it entirely. Everything was wrong. I eased the super back to make an entrance above the cluster and watched the bees in the cluster for some time. In the end I eased them all into the brood box picking up any that had dropped off on the ground in front of the hive putting them inside too. I then put the super back in place above them.

I made a small entrance by pushing the glass back on the crown board so that the bees in the super could fly .

I killed several wasps.

There were bees interested in the taped up entrance until it got dark by which time the bees in the super were flying in and out from the entrance at the top (the crown board feeder hole).

Maybe if it hadn't been such a nice day it would have all been different.

Next time I will seal the brood box entrance entirely so that no bees can get in or out of the brood box and make an entrance at the top of the super from the beginning. The feral bees would have been fine confined for a few days with plenty of room and plenty of food. The bees in the super would have had the time to get themselves established and to start to defend their own entrance before getting through the newspaper to the queen.

Uummm I live and learn. What happens now I don't know.

Electric Feral Bees, Old Costessy

Electric Freal Bees

The bees I took out of the electrical box traveled back with their honey comb nestled carefully in an eiderdown taped into a cardboard box. I open the box just enough last night as I left it in the allotment for the bees to fly this morning.

Today's plan was to open the box and transfer the bees to a regular brood box and hopefully find the all important queen. There was a small cluster of bees on the honey comb in the middle of the eiderdown and yes they do have a queen. Quite small and grey and last seen on the floor of the new brood box.

In the brood box I had removed three of the empty frames and put in three a frames from my stores that had honey in them. I then proceed to watch the bees to see how they would settle. After half an hour or so it was becoming apparent that the frame of honey was attracting wasps and bees from other hives. The hive with feral bees next door was getting over excited. I came to the conclusion that there were just not enough bees to defend themselves in these circumstances and that more bees were needed to bolster the numbers of the Electric Feral colony.

I have been meaning to make a visit to the Old Costessy Apiary for some days now to give the youngest queen there more feed (which I did). Whilst I was there I stole the super with it's bees from the top of Sticky's hive. There was an empty bucket on the hive that I have now brought back too. The two other hives in the corner still had feed in their buckets. All of the hives had flying bees.

The super from Costessy is now on top of the Electric Feral bee's brood box with a sheet of newspaper between them. I have left a small space open at the top for now and taped the entrance to leave the smallest of spaces. I will close the top later today and wait for a few days until I see bees coming from the entrance before taking a look under the crown board. Hopefully the costessy bees will be happy to be with a queen and make up the numbers enough for them all to defend themselves and survive the winter. I will put the feed bucket on in a few days time.

Electric Feral Bees

Electric Feral Bees.

It is too late in the year by good couple of months to get call outs for swarms of bees. However, there are still bees out there that are not where they should be. Today's feral bees were inside an electrical box located outside. No one would have known they were there if there hadn't been a fault to fix.

My photograph is not very good but you can see the honey comb that I removed in order that the electrician can fix what he needs to fix.

There isn't much in the way of store in the honeycomb I removed and there weren't really many bees either. I'm not sure if these bees would have survived the winter if they had been left alone.

I will help them all I can by giving them a new home and plenty of food but I fear it may not be possible to get these bees through the winter and save them.

Student allotment apiary, Tina's hive, Furgle's hive

Student allotment apiary.

The weather has turned warm again after the frosty days we had last week and the bees were taking pollen into the hives again today.

I gave the double brood box National hive on the student plot a bucket full of syrup today. The single brood National hive still has feed in the feeder.

Tina's hive hadn't quite finished it's last bucket full but I added a little to it. Furgle's hive has an empty bucket on it.

Feral bees

Feral Bees

The bees from the bush on my allotment are housed in two supers together and they did have on top of those a brand new brood box. On top of the brood box was a crown board and feeder bucket.

Today I took off the new brood box and lowered the crown board with feeder bucket to sit on top of the two supers. The bees were not going up through the brood box to get to the feed.

Feral Bees. Friday, October 17, 2008

Student allotment apiary

The student allotment apiary has three hives all of which had new buckets of feed put on just a week ago. That feed has been taken completely by the bees in the two hives with double brood boxes and is almost finished on the new hive.

Saturday, October 18 2008

Tina's hive, Furgle's Hive, Postwick apiary

Tina's hive, Furgle's Hive, Postwick apiary.

The bucket of sugar syrup on Tina's was not finished but I topped it up to the brim again anyway.

The bucket on Furgle's hive was finished but there was only small amount of syrup left to give them.

The hives at Postwick that had buckets of feed on still had plenty of feed in them. I put a bucket of feed onto the 'swarm' hive.

Kerry's bees

Kerry's bees were living in his chimney until this summer when he had the builders in to extend his house. That meant that the chimney the bees were living in was going to be taken down and re-built so the bees had to be moved.

Yesterday I paid them a visit in their new home. They were left on my last visit with a regular brood box on a floor (not open mesh) with board on top with four holes it in with two supers on top of that containing the wax that had been removed from the chimney. The intention was that as the bees traveled through the brood box to get to their honey comb they would decide to use the brood frames in the brood box instead and lead the queen down into it.

On this visit I opened the top board that was gaffa taped down over the two supers was able to see what was going on with the old wax. It looks as though we have been successful as little new wax had been made on the old wax from inside the chimney and there was no fresh brood there.

We won't open the brood box until next year. I was able to take one of the empty supers off and put a super of empty frames on top of the remainder so the bees old wax from inside the chimney is now sandwiched between the brood box at the bottom and a super of empty frames on top. That super now has a new board will holes in it on top of it and a bucket feed on top of that.

I put a tray of Apiguard in with the old wax and some crystals on the lugs of the super frames.

The floor needed an entrance block fitted and I fitted a mouse guard to that as well.

I intend to visit again in a couple of weeks time (weather willing) and put on more food and a new roof.

Kerry's bees links
Tuesday, August 12 2008

Students allotment apiary

Students allotment apiary. I gave all of the hives another full bucket of feed today.

Allotment Apiary, Tina's hive, Furgle's hive

Allotment Apiary visit.

As it was a sunny day I opened three of the swarm hives on the allotment to check that the brood was on the frames in the center of the brood box and adjusted two of them. Both of those two need more feeding. I put mouseguards on all of the hives in the row with the WBC hive at the end (the WBC had a mouseguard on already ). I like the look of the third hive in the row. The swarm bees have got well established covering all of the frames bar one in the brood box. The bees came out of the hive as I pinned the mouseguard on to see what was going on and were all over my fingers. They seemed quite un-phased and didn't sting me. I put an empty super on that hive and will watch with interest how it builds up next year. They may be the kind of good tempered hard working bees that I want on the allotment site.

I had a look at the 'feral' colony and cut away a few more twigs and put in some short frames to fill the space above the original brood wax with the twigs running through it. The bees have moved to the frames quite well but I fear it will take them until well into next year before the move up into the brand new empty space of the brood box above them and start to draw out those new frames. I put a full bucket of feed on.

The bucket of feed on Tina's hive was nearly finished I took that one off put and empty super on above the two brood boxes and a full bucket of feed back on top of that.

I put more feed on Furgle's hive.

I took off an empty bucket from the National double brood box hive on the student plot and put an empty super on that hive too. It still needs a lot of feed to fill the second brood box.

I have used one of the three 25 kilo bags of sugar I bought the yesterday.

George's bees, Postwick apiary visit

I checked over Georges bees with him today. Showed him the queen (she is well marked yellow) and fed them some more sugar syrup. I'm not sure why but they were ejecting some of the bees from the hive.

Paid a visit to the Postwick apiary and put roofs on three hives there that didn't have one. I put a super on two of the hives that have a double brood box. I gave the smaller single brood box hives a quick look inside. All have the brood in the middle of the box and they all need to store more sugar. The buckets that I put on during my last visit were half finished.

I bought three more 25 kilo bags of sugar today.

Postwick visits
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Friday September 19th 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008

Old Costessy Apiary

It rained this pm but it is not yet cold.

The last time I visited the four hives at Costessy I topped the feeders on each hive.

On checking the feeders today I found that they were still half full although all had plenty of bees feeding from them.

Without doing a full check it did look as though three of the four hives have most of the brood frames full of stores and it was only the last hive to re-queen that will still need more food after this bucket if the bees are to fill it's two brood boxes full with stores.

Maybe I shouldn't have put a super on that hive but I had taken four supers with me and I put them all on. I like to have one super on all of my hives when they go into the winter. Even if the super isn't used this autumn the bees will clean it and keep it ready to use when they need it next spring.

Each hive had a restricted entrance with an entrance block in and after today they now all have the entrance covered with a mouseguard.

Friday, October 3 2008 topped up feeders
Monday, September 15, 2008 gave the bees more food
Thursday, August 28, 2008 Started feeding unighted two hives

Allotment bees

The weather is still warmer than one would expect for this time of year and the bees are still very active.

Most, but not quite all, of the allotment bees have finished the food I gave them (on the 8th) and I have removed the empty buckets. I will give the swarm hives another inspection maybe tomorrow as I want to be sure that the brood is on frames in the center of the box and not positioned off to one side of the brood box. The hive on Furgle's plot also had an empty bucket on.

George has reported back that his new bees are flying fine.

Suffolk bees

The sunshine continues.

I paid a visit to the bees in Suffolk and fed three of the four hives there and brought the fourth hive back to Norwich and set it up in George's back garden.

Another beautiful, warm, sunny, autumn day. I have left the bees to get on with making honey today.

Tina's hive

I have finally taken all of the honey off Tina's hive and stashed the super frames away ready for next year's swarms and nucs. I left it until this afternoon to move them giving the bees a chance to take some honey back into the hive.

There are now bees in my allotment that are not at all happy to have humans near them. I think the swarm bees that I moved around the other day are not happy at being messed around.

I have made two new roofs today.

Thorpe, Postwick, Bluebell Road, Tina's hive

Another bright sunny day.

I made a quick visit to the bees in Thorpe and took two buckets off the hives. The hive with the old queen didn't have a feeder bucket on.

The middle hive had an empty bucket and I think needs another full bucket of feed before the winter closes in. The hive at the end had a bucket 3/4 full that I took of.

Next I paid a visit to Postwick filled three buckets and put them on the first two brood boxes that are up on the cattle feeder and the third hive in on the row of four.

The bees were busy in all of the hives bringing in bright yellow pollen. From the ivy still I guess.

I then paid a visit to the bees at the UEA Bluebell Road site.

I moved one of the two hives at the Bluebell Road site so that it is now off the floor. The feeder bucket that I put on less than a week ago was empty. I did a quick check to see that eggs were still being laid. This is a double brood box with a super as well and has plenty of stores in it to see it through the winter. I put some thymol crystals in.

The other hive there needs blocks and a new roof. Again the feeder bucket was empty. There were eggs and I gave it thymol. That hive is a brood and a half.

I used the two empty buckets from Bluebell Road and put one on the hive with the old queen on student allotment plot. That has two brood boxes on but the top box is empty. Put in some Thymol crystals.

I opened up the hive on Tina's plot and took off the two supers. The queen is laying in both of the two brood boxes. There were still two new brood frames in the top box that weren't drawn out yet. I put the second feeder bucket from Bluebell Road on. I removed the frames from one of the supers and after brushing the bees off in the dark stored them away in my trunk. The other I will have to deal with in the morning. Put some Thymol crystals in.

My allotment apiary

A warm, sunny, perfect autumn day.

Yesterday I put full feeder buckets on all of the hives at my allotment. And one on the on hive on Furgle's allotment but I didn't have time to open up any of the hives.

The hive on Tina's plot is my only hive that hasn't had any sugar at all so far this year but then it has had all of the wet supers to clean up. However, I will open it up soon and check it for stores.

On my plot there were two hives that needed a little sorting out.

The daughter of the queen that swarmed under the hive in Thorpe that re-queened at the allotment is now finally in a brood box on a hive floor. They have a fair amount of stores but may still need one more bucket once this one is finished.

One of the swarms that I picked this year was housed in haste and made honey comb under the brood frames because they were housed on double supers. That hive has finally been sorted out and that queen is now in a regular brood box on a newly positioned base and under a queen excluder.

http://patricklaslett.blogspot.com/2008/09/allotment-hives-given-thymol.html
http://patricklaslett.blogspot.com/2008/08/day-has-started-with-bright-sunshine.html

Old Costessy and Bluebell Road Apiary

I started feeding again today on a damp day that rained on and off all day.

I last visited my Old Costessy Apiary on September 15 and gave them some feed. They hadn't used much of that feed (probably as I had put Thymol in it) so I just topped up the buckets on the four hives. Two of those hives are on double brood and two are on brood and a half. All have entrance blocks but none have mouse guards.

Costessy link

I also gave the two hives at The Bluebell Road Apiary a new bucket of sugar syrup each. Both hives need some attention. One has a roof that has fallen to bits and the other needs re-positioning. Neither has an entrance block or a mouse guard in place.

Bluebell Road Apiary link

More sugar

The weather improved as the day progressed and by tea time it was a lovely day.

I have bought five more 25kilo bags of sugar.

I went to see how the bees from the chimney are getting on today and although the weather wasn't especially nice or dry it wasn't tipping down with rain and the bees were flying well.

After being taken out of the chimney several weeks ago their honey comb was placed in two empty supers on a board above a brood box. The plywood board had four large hole drilled in it to give the bees access to the old comb. So they have a regular hive floor and brood box arrangement at the bottom and their old wax at the top.

They now need an entrance block and mouseguard and some feeding.

We will wait until next year before sorting out the old honey comb that came from inside the chimney pot. First we need to get bees to lead the queen out of their old comb and into one of our boxes. Once she starts to lay in a regular brood box we will be able to remove the old comb.

These bees are very small and very black.

The morning started nice and sunny but by the afternoon our sunny spell was over and a wind was picking up from the North West. Time to start thinking of feeding the bees again.

It's just a perfect day. The sky is blue without a cloud to be seen. There is no wind and hardly even a breeze coming from anywhere.

The day has started bright and sunny a perfect early Autumn day. And the forecast is for more to come.

I gave the old queen on the students allotment a new base, brood box and roof and put the old brood box on top of the new one so that is another double brood hive put together. I saw the queen and she still has some of her yellow mark on. If they are going to fill the top brood box they will need feeding. I put on a mouseguard and put in some thymol crystals.

I checked the other hive (a daughter of this swarm queen) and saw eggs and again put on another brood box and mouseguard and gave them crystals.

I did the same with Furgal's hive and put on another brood box . There was a super on and that is getting very nearly full of honey. Now the second brood box (brand new with new frames and undrawn foundation) is sandwiched between the original brood box (a very old one) and the super which is now on the top. If I can get the bees to eat up the ivy honey and make wax in order to draw out the foundation that suits me fine. I'm sure that I will need to feed them as well if I want the new box full of stores.

Yesterday I made a visit to Postwick to check the two hives that I didn't have time to go through on my last visit.

The end hive tucked away in the bushes was, as I feared, queenless but the hive next door did have a queen. I had introduced a queen cell to that hive some months back from bees I brought in from Costessy. That queen was a daughter of Rosemary's 2006 (gentle) Greek queen. I saw her she is still unmarked quite small and dark. I put the two brood boxes together and gave the top box a dose of thymol crystals. The queenless hive did have a tray of Apiguard on allready. I put in an entrance block so that hive just needs a mouseguard now to be ready for the winter.

I did a quick check of the hive that I put frames of bees into on my last visit and saw a marked brown queen that was laying well.

There are now five hives there on double brood and five on single brood.

Grey damp drizzel

Ferral bees

Picked up a colony of bees that had made their home in the shrubbery of an office car park. They were found by the groundsmen strimming the shrubs.

It's the first time that I have found honey comb in the open.

The comb is now in a two suppers with it's twigs sticking in it and through it and with two or three brood frames on either side. I gave them one of my brood frames from my store that had honey in but even so I think it may take some time to entice the queen from their comb onto my frames and I may well have to leave these bees like this until next spring before I can get them set up in a regular brood box.

I have only just about sorted out the bees from Thorpe that set up home under the floor of the National hive there.

The car park was in Thorpe so I also paid a visit to the three WBC hives there. The large white hive hasn't taken all of the last bucket of syrup I gave them on my last visit so I gave to it to hive at the other end of the row that had been short changed with less than a full bucket last time. I put in a entrance block (provided by Norman who I also visited) and a mouseguard on that hive.

Allotment hives given thymol

A perfect sunny day and the flow of Ivy honey continues.

I took the extractor back up to the allotment where it will stay in the shed for the winter. Any honey on the hives now will either stay there for the bees or be put in store for next year.

I checked all of the allotment hives (with the exception of those on the student plot) to ensure that they had laying queens and gave each hive a spoonful of thymol crystals on the end of the lugs of the center brood frames.

Some of the smaller hives still need feeding. In fact it would be a good plan for me to feed all of my hives again but I have used nearly 200 kilo of sugar so far this year and it seems as though I could easily get through the same amount again.

All of the alloment sites added together now have a total of thirteen laying queens.

Tina's plot -- one
Furgle's plot -- one
My plot -- eight
Permaculture students -- three

Out of my eight three or four are swarms collected this year. One is imported from Thorpe. One is a daughter of Tina's queen. One is the daughter of my old queen last year (that's in the WBC hive). One is in the box that the old queen was in originally. Her pedigree is now uncertain but I reckon she must be either from the original allotment queen or from Tina's queen.

Postwick apiary visit

Another sunny day. I have been leaving the bees alone to get on with making ivy honey in the sunny weather we have been having for the last few days but today I did visit my Postwick apiary.

The last time I visited Postwick was just over a week ago

Today I checked every hive except two for laying queens. The box that had not managed to breed a laying queen on my last visit still hadn't. So I put those bees into the hive next door.

All hives except two now have entrance blocks and mouseguards. And all except two had an application of Thymol crystals put along both end of the central frames.

All would like more feeding.

Grey again

A bright sunny day and the bees are making honey.

I put more food on the four hives at Old Costessy and have now used the last of my six 25kilo bags of sugar.

Thorpe hives fed again

Calm warm sunny start to the day.

By the middle of the day the bees were very busy taking bright yellow ivy pollen into the hive entrances.

Took of the last lot of 'wet' supers off Tina's hive and put some more on

Put on the first mouse-guard fitted entrance block into the hive at the end of the allotment.

Feb the three Thorpe hives with sugar syrup laced with thymol crystals.

UEA Bees

Nice sunny day.

A chance to take the last colony on the allotments site (UEA students) that is still in temporary box and put them into a regular brood box and give them some food. I've run out of used brood boxes and are making new ones now.

The UEA student's allotment now has three colonies there. The original swarm queen that I had collected last year from the Univerity and two of her daughters. So these can, I think, be called UEA Bluebell Allotment bees.

I removed the used supers off Tina's hive and put more wet ones to replace them.

I took a few frames of honey and the old box feeder off the hive at the end of the allotment. This hive housed the first swarm that I collected at the start of the season and was re-queened with a queen cell from Tina's queen.

I'm still trying to sort out the swarm that was housed in haste on a pair of supers and today I isolated the queen (marked red) in the brood box that I had put on a few weeks ago. I put that brood box between two queen excluders so now the bottom set of super frames will not get eggs laid in them. One frame had a slab of drone brood along the bottom so I removed that. This hive has had it's two recommended doses of Apiguard in the last month so I thought I would check this drone brood for mites with my uncapping fork. There were still plenty of mites in evidence and they were alive and living on the drone grubs. It looks like this hive will need more than two trays of Apiguard to get the mites down to an exceptable level. At least removing that chunk of drone brood will help a bit.

As it got dark I visited the hive on the UEA Bluebell Road site and took off a super of honey and put more frames into the top brood box. The bees didn't like that at all and I got stung through my gloves and through my trowsers. I put a full bucket of feed on the hive as the bees have lots of work to do now in drawing out the new foundation in the new frames in the top brood box. I need to go back and pick up the spare super frames that were in the top brood box that are now outside the hive.

The day started wet

Postwick

The day started bright, warm and sunny with a strong warm breeze from the South West.

I hadn't been to Postwick for a week and today's visit was less than a 100% successful. There is one colony there that is not in a brood box and on last weeks inspection didn't have laying queen so I took along a brood box for them. Still no laying queen so I brought it back.

The other hive that I couldn't confirm as queenright last week did have some grubs in the brood frames but not a good laying pattern. There wasn't much spare room with recently collected honey taking up brood space. I took off a super from one of the hives with a double brood box with plenty of space still in the top brood box. They hadn't started using the super frames yet so I put that super on the end hive. The queen in end hive is a grandaughter of Norman's nasty bees that I took on with the apiary. One of which today got into my wellington boot and stung me on the foot.

The hive that has my red queen in (the one taken from Postwick daughter of the Gentle Greek queen) had a super underneath two brood boxes so I moved that above the two brood boxes after finding the queen in the bottom brood box. She has been messed around all summer by being moved from one box to the next in order to create queen cells. Her last move was in the super of a hive set up as a brood and a half. It's good to get her settled back in the right place. I put a tray of Apiguard on that hive as well. Several of the Postwick hives have her daughters. The big test is to see if/how they survive the winter.

The ivy in the countryside is in bloom and the bees are storing ivy honey. I now need to feed them some more.

UEA Bluebell Road Apiary

Sunshine! And it lasted for much of a warm day.

There are two hives at my Bluebell road apiary. One hive I took there earlier in the year from the Old Costessy apiary. I moved them because the bees were less easy to handle than the other bees in Old Costessy. Originally these bees were a swarm collected last year. On inspection at the start of August the bees were beginning a swarm procedure and had made one large queen cell. I moved the queen into another hive and left the queen cell and most of the bees in the original hive. Today was the first inspection since then and now there is a new laying queen.

The colony with the old queen I have fed recently.

The colony with the new queen has a super just about full of honey to take off. It has two brood boxes but on inspection today I find the top box is short of deep frames. I must fill that box with more frames, take the super of honey off and then feed and treat the bees. The hive could also do with an open mesh floor.

As usual the day started with grey skys and it has rained on and off for most of the day. I stayed in and extracted the honey that I took from Tina's hive untill the evening when I put bucket of feed on both of the hives that I had put into new brood boxes on the allotment yesterday.

Tina's hive

The day started with grey skys although it was still warm and sun came out occasionally in the afternoon.

I took down the tower that I call Tina's hive (it's on her allotment) and removed three supers with honey in. I put back on the supers that I had extracted honey from last week for the bees to clean up. I will leave those for a few days before taking the hive down to the two brood boxes and putting some food on. They need treatment with Apiguard too.

I opened and checked for queens the last two hives in my allotment and found that both fortunately had laying queens. The total of colonies with laying queens my allotment is now eight. Three are swarms that I collected this year. One colony was imported from Thorpe although the queen was reared on the allotment.

I moved one of the swarms on the allotment from a homemade box into a nice new brood box on an open mesh floor.

No beekeeping today - went to the Suffolk Greenpeace fair.

Suffolk apiary

It's not raining this morning - but I fear there is more rain yet to come. And of course there was.

Welcome to Suffolk. The sign is just a couple of miles from my apiary just over the Norfolk/Suffolk border into Suffolk.

There are four hives at Suffolk. The furthest colony down the line of hives is the latest addition to my Suffolk apiary and was one of the two hives I bought from Bill at the start of the year. I unfortunately left them for too long with honey on and they got tight for space and swarmed fairly early in the season so colony number four has requeened it'self in Suffolk. I will call them Bill's (Suffolk) Bees.

Number three are Suffolk Bees that have been there for some years. Three has a yellow (2007) queen. That queen refuses to lay enough eggs and the colony has remained small all year. They are very docile easy to handle bees - but seemingly useless.

At the start of the year colony number two were Suffolk bees (the queen was the 2006 mother of number three). That hive was queenless on my last visit and I put in a frame of eggs from number four hive into the broodbox. Number two successfully requeened and was queenright today. So number two is now a daughter of Bills (Suffolk) Bees in number four.

Colony number one was taken to Suffolk last year and still has the same queen. I'm not sure how old the queen is. They are Bluebell Allotment Bees that sulked at the start of the year and missed out on the rape. They have built up a bit better since. There were quite a few bees in the hive today and if the summer weather had been good then they may have made a couple of supers of honey. But that wasn't the case.

Tonight I removed the supers from all of the hives taking each hive down to the brood box and put a box feeder on each. I had taken out around 18 pints of sugar syrup that I then split equally between each hive. I will have to take at least the same amount out again in a couple of weeks time. Ben and I took off a very small amount of honey from hive one and two.

It has been a bad year for honey production in my Suffolk apiary. This year Bill's Bees saved the day by making honey from the Oilseed Rape. My bees were useless at that time.

On the plus side each colony was queenright tonight and given that I fill as much space in each hive as I can with sugar before the winter arrives they stand a good chance of getting through the winter OK.

It seems the bees there needed a bit of hybrid vigor. Bills bees were not as laid back as my Suffolk bees they were taken to join. Maybe if the remaining yellow Suffolk queen makes it through the winter I will remove her at the end of April and see if a daughter of hers can take on a bit of Bills Bee's spirit. I will have to ensure that hive four produces plenty of drones.

I put Apiguard on number four hive as I saw some deformation in the bees on my last visit and that is a certain sign that they have a severe mite infestation.

A grey morning that only got worse as it rained all afternoon. No beekeeping.

Duncan has bee keeping equipment for sale

List and all in price below

Bee Equipment for Sale

Duncan Brown

1. Superinox Lega 9 frame manual stainless steel radial extractor (as new).

2. Dadant cedar shallow supers (x8) (as new) with 97 frames which require new foundation.

3. Dadant Queen excluders – x1 wire, x1 slotted.

4. National

- Stand

- Floor

- Brood box with 11 frames (require new foundation)

- Supers (x8) with 89 frames (require new foundation)

- Queen excluders (x4)

- Roof (x2)

- Glass quilt

- Miller type feeder

5. Smoker copper 7 x 3

6. Sherriff Apiarist bee suit (large)

150lb poly settling tank with plastic tap

Around £500

I think that is a good price.

More feed for Postwick bees

Another grey start to the day unlike yesterday that was sunny of and on all day with just the occasional shower.

Yesterday I sorted out the bees on the student plot at the allotments. I last went into those hives on the 3rd August There are three laying queens there now including the original swarm queen from last year (marked yellow). I put feeders on two and took away any small amounts of honey left.

I also made a trip to Old Costessy and fed all four hives and took any remaining honey from 'Sticky'.

Today I made another trip to my Postwick apiary and put feed onto four hives that didn't get fed before. The last time I went out there I didn't feed them. Now there is only one colony not in a brood box and that I havn't yet confirmed has a queen. I need to make some more floors and roofs for some of the hives out there and they all still need treatment.

It had rained heavily earlier on in the day but by the evening it had stopped and by the time I left Postwick the weather was calm with a stunning sunset.The ivy in the lane on the way to the apiary is not in such an advanced state of flower as that in the allotment. Picked some nice blackberries.

It was raining on and off today. I fed one of the two hives on the allotment that needs checking for a laying queen. Their month is up tomorrow.

I think it going to be a poor year for English Honey. My bees are working ivy now but I will take ivy honey off only one hive that still has three supers of half capped honey on. If I time it correctly they will finish capping the frames and top up what is there with ivy. I have to be quick to extract it and get it into jars as it sets amazingly quickly.

All of the other hives I'm quite happy to leave the ivy honey to the bees and I just need to give them enough sugar to mix with it.

After rain in the night the day has started bright and sunny and turned into a nice late summer/early Autumn day.

I spent much of the day re-organising my sheds on the allotment and stowing away empty nuc boxes. I have also begun to stack up the supers that, like the nuc boxes, won't be required again until next year.

I the evening I gave more feed to the three hives at Thorpe

I did no beekeeping yesterday Saturday August 30th as we spent the day at the Maverick music festival

Despite the weather forecast of doom and gloom the day has started warm and still - the forecasters could be right though and there could be thunder on it's way.

Most of the day was warm and sunny - until I got halfway through looking at my Postwick apiary when it started to rain and I therefore didn't check every hive.

All the hives that I gave syrup to before going away have used it all up.
Two hives don't show evidence of a laying queen - but they may do next week as we have just had a perfect mating day.
Eight hives have a 2008 laying queen.
Four hives are now on double brood boxes.
I put Apiguard onto the hive that I put onto a double brood box today.
There is one 'old' queen still going strong that was marked white when I bought her a few months ago. She is the only one left of the three that I bought at the start of the year.

The bees here are:
Norman's Postwick - the three colonies that were there to start with.
Normans Thorpe that were moved there as queen cells.
Descendants from a daughter from Rosemary's (2006) Gentle Greek Queen that I moved there and unighted with one of the three original Postwick hives at the start of the year.
And a Hellsdon squarm that was taken there and re-queened there.

The allotment apiary

The day has started with bright sunshine and continued to become a really warm if not always sunny day.
I checked and confirmed six hives for laying queens. Put another tray of Apiguard on one (swarm2).
Put feed on the white WBC after doubling it to two brood boxes.
Doubled the brood box on the hive next to the WBC and gave it more feed
Put feed the hive on Furgles plot
Put the cappings back on the hive at the end (re-queened swarm1)
Swarm3 is still in a temporary box - saw the queen - very dark

Old Costessy apiary visit

Another grey start to the day. Extracted honey that I removed from 'Tinas' hive yesterday. The day brightened as the sun came out after lunch and in fact it became quite a warm day.

I went to sort out the bees at Old Costessy at around tea time. Out of the five hives remaining in that apiary there one that was queenless. I united that one with the youngest queen with the smallest colony. As a result that hive is now on double brood box.

Out of the four hives remaining two are on double boxes. I put entrance blocks in them all and left the three that have 2008 queens with a feeder on. The ivy is beginning to bloom and if we get a warm spell the bees will make some ivy honey. I like them to mix ivy honey with sugar syrup and store it for the winter.

Just one colony in Old Costessy was left with 2007 queen and I have nicknamed her 'sticky' as her offspring are making more propolis than my other bees. Sticky is a very gentle queen bred from Bluebell allotment bees. Her hive didn't make a particulary large amount of honey this year so she is not favourite to breed from but I will keep her going for as long as I can because the bees are so easy to handle. Maybe they will do better next year. At least Sticky's colony can provide some gentle drones to add to Old Costessy's genetic mix. They will be needed for mating with next years 2009 virgin queens once the current 2008 queens have been moved on.

I hope they will all survive the winter OK.

Another grey yet warm start to the day. As the day progressed it warmed and occasionally the sun shone. In the afternoon I took down 'Tinas' hive to the double brood box at the bottom. I put on the second (top) brood box few weeks ago (see picture). When I put it on it was brand new with all un-drawn new foundation. It is now fully drawn-out and full of eggs and brood. The were five supers on before I started. I left three on and removed a super and a half of capped frames. Later in the evening I put on four supers of 'wet' frames that I had been keeping in the shed since extracting the honey before leaving to go on holiday.

We got back from Normandy yesterday pm and made a quick visit to the allotment and picked beans, blackberries and dahlias.

Japanese Onions, Bluebell Road Bees

The day starts with a grey sky although the wind has dropped. By the afternoon the sun did come out for tea and that was nice.

Sowed Japanese onion seed here in a pot.

The evening has probably been the best part of the day. I went back to the Bluebell Road bees and put on a super full of brand new frames (in an old super that has been around all summer waiting to be fixed up). On top of that (above the crown board) I put on a bucket of sugar syrup that will help give them the energy to drawn out a frame or two. They will need several more buckets of sugar before the season is over as I'm hoping that they are not only going to draw out this box of super frames but another brood box of deep frames as well.

Norwich City Bees, Varroa treement started, Bluebell Road bees,

Bright sunny day. Extracted honey in the morning and fed bees in the afternoon. Put BluebellRoad queen into brood box from nuc box. Started putting entrance blocks on hives that I'm feeding to restrict the entrance so that bees can defend their entrance easier. Put Apiguard Varroa treatment on one of the swarms that I collected this year because I saw a mite. Actually seeing a mite is a bad sign of infestation I am informed by the experts. Seeing deformed bees is another. I'm not certain which swarm this was from those I picked up in the summer - possibly they were ones from the city office car park. I think I will name these Norwich City Bees.

Norwich city bees were housed in haste on brood frames in two superr boxes on a tempory floor that is open front and back. By the time I got around to looking at them they had built brood comb under several of the frames. So after having established that they have a laying queen I have pretty much left them to get on with it until a week or so back when I put on a regular brood box and a bucket of feed. That was until today.

Took of honey and fed the bees sugar syrup

Took of honey and fed the bees sugar syrup in the Thorpe apiary. I put an extra brood box on two of them and re-sited one of the three WBC hives there onto four paving slabs that I scavenged on the way there. They just happened to be sitting on top of a pile of rubble in a skip two streets away. I wouldn't normally have passed that skip or seen them but on this occasion I was doubling back on myself as I had forgotten to change into my wellington boots. I was trying to decide which apiary to go to first but finding the slabs was a sign to go to Thorpe first. And very smart they now look with a WBC hive on top of them.

I did go to Poswick after Thorpe where there are now about a dozen hives that I fed in some fashion or other. I still need to visit them in the daytime to sort some of them into brood boxes for the winter and deal with any that are queenless. Three of the hives there are now on double brood boxes.

More frames

I paid a visit to Don Cooper and bought six large bags of sugar and the kit to make up 100 new brood frames.

Extracting honey

The day started with heavy rain.

I'm extracting honey that I took off yesterday from the hives at Old Costessy.

In the afternoon went to finish getting the bees out of Kerry's chimney pot and into a hive. We had taken the chimney pot down from the roof three weeks ago but had not taken the comb out of the chimney pot itself. Although I didn't see the queen there was brood and eggs in some of the comb so hopefully she has survived this latest move and will eventually take to the frames in the brood box. I need to go and see them again on Saturday to check for queen cells. No queen cells will be sign that she has survived OK.

Sunday allotment tasks included cutting down a large chunk of a dead apple tree. Bought Japanese onion seed. Dug and weeded.

Moved the queenless hive from Thorpe to my allotment site. Dug Wilja potatoes. Picked blackberries.

Another overcast morning with a strong cool breeze from North.

Worked in the morning and again over lunch with on the phone with Alison (www.alisonwithers.co.uk) Got her site .ftp sorted and gave her a basic introduction to Dreamweaver course on the phone so that she can now change her site herself. (I see that she has done too!)

Peter Lely (www.peterlely.co.uk) arrived in the afternoon with his recent work that we scanned into my computer in order that I update his website.

Saw John (www.norwichdecorator.co.uk) in the allotment. Forked over ground for Pru to plant lettuce in.

Feeding starts

The weather is not hot and sunny. Looking out of my window I see a very dull overcast day outside. On venturing outside I find that it is a supprisingly warm still day and the bees are behaving as though there maybe some mating flights in progress.

In the evening I started to feed the bees for the first time. I had melted 4 kilo bags of sugar with four pints of water earlier in the day and allowed it to cool.

The first colony to get a complete bucket of feed is one of the swarms I picked up a month or so ago. In haste they were put onto deep frames on two super boxes (two supers are deeper than one brood and the bees extend the frames down with extra brood comb). I want the bees to move up into a brood box I've put on above the supers so that I can move it off and put it on a hive base and settle them down for the winter.

The bees seem OK and I will keep them and build them during next year to see how well they make honey and how nice they are to work with.

August 4th (Pru's birthday)

I inspected a hive today that I took honey from last week. Originally the bees in that hive I picked up as swarm. It was quite a large swarm that I collected some time last year. I can't remember when exactly but it was early enough for me to find out that these bees didn't like being disturbed - they stung and I needed to gloves on when I opening them up.

Last year they built up a strong colony and came through this 07/08 winter OK. When inspecting them I could never find the queen and they were unpleasant. I took them through last winter on a double brood box and as I couldn't find the queen I took a gamble at the start of the year as to which box the queen was in and put a frame of eggs in the other box (from a different hive where bees didn't sting so bad). The following week I found queen cells on the frame that I had introduced so my gamble had paid of and the queen was in the other box. So half of the angry bees were now going to breed a 'nicer' queen. (which I think they did)

After I had been through the box with the queen in twice again I gave up on looking for that queen and left that colony alone for a while.

Gradually over the weeks that colony started to grow and those bees made their annoyance of my visits to that apiary increasingly apparent so I took of half of the bees again (those above the queen excluder) and unighted them with another weaker colony and as I wanted to breed more queens in that apiary I moved the angry queen in the brood box three miles away to an apiary where I keep angry bees.

Finally after they had been in the new apiary for a while I found the queen and marked her yellow . Then I left them alone pretty much to make some honey. They had been messed around enough and were now out of the way of people. Except possibly the young hooligans who turned a hive over in that apiary last winter.

I had increased the space for the queen to a brood and a half before taking a good full super of honey off last week and there right in the middle of the super was one queen cell just at the start of production.

Today it was late in the evening before I got to inspect the hive. Last week as I took the honey off but put an extra brood box on and another super. So tonight there was one super that I had put on last week empty (now with two frames of honey in it) and one super with a frame in the middle with the longest queen cell I have seen this year on it - just one queen cell. And below that super were the two brood boxes of bees.

The bees were skittish and I think getting ready to swarm. I wanted to find the queen and get her out of there. There were lots of bees in the colony so I was pretty certain that they hadn't swarmed.

The top brood box that I had put on last week only had honey and stored pollen in it and no brood so there wasn't much point spending much time looking for the queen in that box. In the bottom brood box most of the brood was on the far side. The first half dozen frames had no new brood in and in between old capped brood there were cells filled with honey.The bees were not intending the queen to lay on those frames for a while.

I had a nuc box ready and as I got to last frame was thinking about having to put the queen cell in there if I couldn't find the queen (earlier in the year I probably would have anyway). I started to go back through the frames again and there on the third frame in I found her with her yellow mark nearly worn completely away. She wasn't a very large queen and was quite dark so it was no wonder she was so hard to find.

Will the queen stay in the nuc box for a while so that I can eventually put her into a new brood box to see if she can survive another winter?

Will a new mated queen get back to the colony OK? ---- Honey Stripes

Will be bees still be as difficult to handle next year with a new queen as they have been in 07/08?

These are now the only bees in that 'angry' apiary now but they are not the only 'angry bees that I have.

Angry bees are often good honey makers - but they are not good for allotments or town gardens if you don't want your neighbours to get stung.

Bee Keeping Blog

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