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.