Postwick yesterday, goodbye Sticky - best of luck!

Yesterday I went through all the hives at Postwick and gave them all Thymol. None of the hives there are building up like the hives elsewhere. It may be the more exposed position and weeks of Northery cool breezes that are affecting things there - but I can't be sure.

Sticky has left Old Costessy and gone to live in Bury St Edmunds today.

Two queens - the one from the allotment next to the WBC and Norman's Old Costessy number one went to Cambridge yesterday.

Thorpe, Permaculture, Old Costessy

I started by looking in the middle hive in Thorpe - just the briefest of looks to see if there were still bees there. There were but there is no point disturbing them further, they will either multiply and survive or dwindle and die out.

Next I checked out the old Thorpe queen. Not so good. She was there and laying eggs but the colony is not strong. I sorted out the brood boxes by reducing two to one and I gave it a liberal sprinkling of Thymol crystals on the lugs before putting back the queen excluder and super.

After seeing that old queen struggling I thought I should check out some of the others. The old UEA swarm 2007 queen on the students permaculture allotment was doing extremely well and had completed drawing out and finished laying in the drone brood I put in last week. I put another super on.

I checked her double brood box daughter and found and marked the queen they had also drawn out and completed laying in the drone brood.

Next I open Tina's hive and took out 'Tina' and marked her yellow again as her mark had worn off. I took her as a nuc to Old Costessy leaving two brood boxes and a super on the hive. That hive also has a frame of drone brood in it.

In Old Costessy the bees were busy at the entrance to hive on bricks and the two nuc boxes above it. I imagine there are virgin queens in all of them now. If the weather forecast is correct they could well get a chance to mate next Monday/Tuesday.

I took out and marked the queen in Norman's number one Old cosstessy hive making up a large nuc in a new brood box. (now in the allotment)

I checked that 'Sticky' was still in her new brood box. She is easy to see now with her new yellow marking and was in place.

I wanted to put a frame of drone brood in Norman's number two Old Costessy hive. In front of the hive was a crown board and when I lifted it a small cluster of dead bees. Inside the hive were queen cells. I checked the cluster to see if there was a dead queen but couldn't see one. I took one of the frames with two queen cells out of the hive brushed off the bees and reduced the queen cells to one then I put it into the hive I had just removed the queen from. I will need to go back with another nuc box to separate the other queen cells soon as I imagine I lost the queen the day they were moved - last friday - a week ago.

I put a frame of drone brood in Norman's number 3 Old Costessy hive

Picked up two new hives from Bill who advised leaving his mesh accross the entrance until tomorrow so that they don't leave the hive and I don't loose another queen - (I was explaining the scene I found at Old Costessy and he said if they leave in the evening they can get chilled and not get back OK)

Lost queen at Costessy, Sticky and allotment queen breeding begins

I was called to my first swarm of the year and helped the beekeeper collect them. The bee briefs have arrived.

I took the first queens out of my hives today.

One was from one of my very best hives of my nicest bees on the allotment.

I had left the hive last year with two brood boxes and fed it up throughout the summer and autumn enough to put on a super above the queen excluder on top of the two brood boxes. I fed them from Christmas onwards with bakers fondant although they didn't need it. A few weeks back I found and marked the queen and put her in the bottom brood box. Nearly two weeks ago I put in a frame of drone foundation. The drone foundation today was drawn out with eggs and brood in it but none capped. Today I took the queen from the bottom brood box and the frame she was on plus one other frame of brood. From the top brood box I took two frames of solid stores. I put those into a brand new brood box on a new open mesh floor. I put a sprinkling of Thymol crystals along the lugs of the four frames with brood and stores in and a new crown board on top. Once strapped down his box is ready to leave my apiary now and will probably be picked up at the weekend.

The original brood box still has the frame of drone foundation and the remainder of the brood in the bottom brood box. It still has the queen excluder on and the super on above that. The top brood box I left until dark then removed and other filled up frames of stores to my bee proof store. Next Wednesday I will open up that brood box again and take out the frame of drone foundation and I expect to find queen cells on several of the frames I've left behind.

My last visit to Old Costessy (apart from when moving hives there) was on the 5th ten days ago. When I mentioned I had lost the queen in the hive on bricks I didn't think I had actually lost her out side the hive. But that is what must have happened as that hive had queen cell in today .

Not only did it have queen cells in the super frames at the top but at least two open queen cells in the brood box below. I put two separate super frames in two nuc boxes with the queen cells and three or four frames of stores. What a mess and the loss of good queen.

I moved Sticky out of her double brood box and marked her yellow -- this time I will check that she is there in a few days time.

Norman's bees - number 4

I have bought another hive of bees from Norman. This double brood box hive is number 4 and I've sited it at 83 Bluebell North allotments. Norman no longer wants to sell hive 5 which he is keeping. It's his only hive left now.