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.