Misty gone, Rockland swarm

It has been more than a week since I last looked at Misty and and on inspection today she was gone leaving several queen cells behind in her place. I have put one of Misty's queen cells in the hive at the end of the plot and the hive next to the WBC.

I picked up a swarm in Rockland today. Lauren?

The swing sworm left my box and there is only one North Walsham sworn in one of the two boxes now.

A second queen from the hive next to the WBC has come into lay in her nuc box.

Tina

Tina seen and doing well and had a super of unwired foundation put on.

Georges bees are progressing quite nicely and had a super of unwired foundation put on.

There is a queen in the laburnum swarm and I have marked her green. I'm glad these bees they have their own queen as they are quite different to my mostly black bees in that they are very yellow. The queen is quite small and looks very similar the workers. They seem to be waiting for something to happen at the moment and she is not laying a lot of eggs - if any. There are eggs on the frame I introduced - but are they hers? I'm not sure if she is a mated queen or not. I hope she is as marking a virgin queen is probably not a good idea. Link

Two swarms

I picked up two swarms from under the same trampoline in a garden in North Walsham.

Furgle's swarm has left

DN4 Frames

DN4 Frames made up with new foundation are the order of the day. I picked up another small swarm this evening that was hanging under the seat of a swing in Bracon Ash. I have housed it on the allotment to the left of the path towards the end.

The laburnum swarm is doing well but has no laying queen at the moment. I put a frame of eggs in from the Blowthorpe compost bin swarm, that has started laying in the new ND4 frames in the brood box above the old super they were originally put in, to see if they are without a queen and make a queen cell.

I had a quick look into Honey Stripes hive and she is laying well. There were two full supers of honey on the hive so I gave it two more supers. Willow is also still laying well and eluding capture. When opened in the middle of a sunny day Willows bees are not so bad and quite easy to work with but if they are left until the evening or opened in bad weather the protest and sting.

Nuc Boxes, Furgle's swarm

I just can't make them fast enough.

It's beginning to go a little crazy in my apiaries at the moment with bees, swarms and drones going in all directions making honey and mating. At the end of the process hopefully it will all settle down and we should have some sound new laying queens. So far I have only marked half a dozen queen bees green (this year's colour) and half of those have been swarms.

There was a very nice large swarm of bees on the handle of Furgle's rusty old wheelbarrow. My bee from Furgle's hive? A fair bet I would say. Now they are on allotment 83 by the small pear tree in a WBC brood box. If there is a laying queen I think she can be called Rusty.

Luke's bees, Allotment swarm, Lost queen

Late last night I brought back a couple of nucs from Luke in Essex. The one in my allotment has one of his German Carnelian queens. The one in Old Cosstessy is his general stock pre German queens.

With the number of beekeepers and their colonies increasing on the allotment site one would expect the occasional swarm to crop up. Today's was an easy one to collect and is now housed in a brood box near to the small apple tree and the aconites.

I have lost another good queen (or did sometime last week) and had a hive full of queen cells to deal with as a result. This time it was the Thorpe allotment hive. A strong hive of nice bees is now split up and in half a dozen nuc boxes.