Zigga, Misty

I went out to the countryside to pick up swarm this morning. It is now in a brood box on the allotment next door but one to the WBC. If there is a laying queen she will be called 'Cherry'.

Furgle's queen has gone in a nuc to Essex.

I don't want to let Misty go and have sited the nuc that she in on the station near the path in the allotment apiary.

Zigga (the UEA swarm queen of 2007) has now gone into semi retirement . I have taken her to a country village and sited her in Bob's back garden.

I also took Zigga's daughter out of the single brood box to make up a nuc.

UEA Permaculture allotment, George's bees

The yellow queen that was picked up as a swarm in the UEA grounds I am going to call 'Ziggar'. So far this year she has been laying really well. It is almost as though she had just got settled down at the start of this year. But she is no longer young and her bees on inspection today were very skittish and in the middle of the brood box at the bottom of one of the frames was the reason why. Queen cells. Several fat queen cells in production. Fortunately I had decided it was time to move her and had her new home ready (she is going out to a village in country for her retirement). She is marked and on my second go through the box found her on the second frame in. Removing her should stop her bees from swarming which I reckon they were about to do at any time.

George's bees needed their first inspection after being moved a week ago. They were doing really well with a good looking frame of brood and plenty of eggs laid in the last week. The hive needs a regular crown board and some supers.

Old Costessy, Postwick, Willow

I marked my first new green queen today. She is the daughter of the lost queen from the hive on bricks. I'm going to name her 'Maria'. Maria is on shallow frames (that are now in a bit of a state) that I have moved in with some new deep frames. I'm hoping that I will soon find her laying on the new frames..

I inspected the brood box on bricks that I thought also had a laying queen. I could see no eggs and have put a frame of brood in from the double brood box.

I made up a nuc with the bees in the double brood box - she was the last queen to get established in Old Costessy last year. I put in a tray of Apiguard although all the Old Costessy hives were treated earlier in the year.

There are two boxes to move out of Old Costessy now.

In Postwick I still had a hive full of queen cells to sort out. It is the other hive that had to be moved from the allotment. I think both of those hives must have had last year's swarms in.

I made up a nuc from the bees in the hive at the back of the Postwick apiary. This hive, that was under the budlia bushes before I cut them down, was Norman's big angry hive when I bought it last year. I used a frame of eggs from one of Rosemary's greek queen's daughters to produce 'Misty'. I like Misty's bees that are uniformly dark with three thin bands of light honey grey. They are calm and easy to work with.

I took another look into Willow's hive as I would really like to find her and get her out into a nuc box but I think she has been taken down into the bottom brood box as there were very few eggs in the top one. I must remember to do an inspection one sunny lunchtime next week as Willow's bees just do not like their hive being opened if the conditions are not perfect. I took out a couple of old frames of stores and put in two new frames of foundation in their place and put on another super.

Postwick, Old Costessy

I went through one of the two hives I moved from the allotment toady and made up five nucs with the queen cells in it.

I checked the Bowthorpe swarm - and yes there was a laying queen in the box. I gave it some Thymol.

I didn't check and give thymol to the single brood box on my last visit but did today.

In Old Costessy I took out the south facing queen to make up a nuc.

The nuc box on top of the hive on bricks has a laying queen.

The swarm that came from the holly tree has a queen that I marked green.

Russet

I checked over Tina's hive with john and swashed just one queen cup.

The hive at the end of the allotment near the Norfolk Russet apple tree had her queen removed a week ago. That queen was from one of Tina's queen cells. She is now in Islington London. On inspection today there were only two queen cells both on the frame of drone brood.

Furgle's hive has two brood boxes and a super now separated by queen excluders.

I took out the queen from the WBC hive on the allotment today to make up a nuc

Permaculture bees, Bill's bees, Furgle's bees

We have had a good spell of fine weather and I'm concerned that I am giving my bees enough space.

The latest colony to get established last year on the student's Permaculture allotment is in one new brood box. I was going to just put on another super but on opening up found there was no queen excluder so instead I could have put on another brood box. Before doing so I had to take out the frame of drone brood and so may as well give the brood box an inspection. It was full of queen cups with eggs in. Either the bees were feeling tight for space, even though there were still four undrawn super frames, or they don't like their queen. Either way I will take her out of there soon. At least she was still there today. After removing the queen cups and completely capped frame of drone brood I shut it up again.

I put a complete new brood box full of new foundation on one of Bill's hives. That will keep those bees busy for some time and eventually allow me to remove Bill's original brood box.

Furgal's bees have two brood boxes and a super of old stores under the queen excluder and badly needs a full inspection. Unfortunately Furgle has been busy on his plot on a daily basis and although not there today Sunday is not a good day to open up and take to bits a hive when there are children in plots nearby.