Old Costessy

I paid a visit to Old Costessy today although there wasn't much to do there as the sun is still shining and the bees that don't have feed on are making honey and best left alone.

There was the colony that was queenless that had one of George's nucs to unite with to check out. The bees had torn a lot of the newspaper away so I put the two lots of bees together in the bottom brood box. I didn't see the queen.

That gave me a spare brood box so I put Norman's allotment queen into that. I now have just one lot of bees left in a nuc box that need to go into a brood box.

There is one small colony at the allotment that seem to be queenless all of sudden. I will need to unite those with another colony soon and that will free up another box.

The bees that were on the outside of their brood box have all moved inside and are taking the feed from the box feeder. I am going to leave them for a while before checking them for a laying queen.

Thorpe and Poswick

I put another bucket of feed on two of the hives in Thorpe.

In Postwick most of the hives have some fondant on. One of the three that hasn't is supposed to be uniting two brood boxes together but as yet the bees in the bottom box don't seem to be interested in the bees with a queen in the box above.

The hive that has a daughter of one of the two stinging hives that I moved from the allotment at the start of the year I have been leaving to make honey this year. On my last visit I moved the queen excluder down between the super and brood box as they were on a brood and a half. Gamgling that the queen is in the super at this time of the year (I did the same with the Bowthorpe queen today - nice brood pattern there with no chalkbrood) .

The queen was in the brood box and the bees were making honey in the super. I took three frames of honey out and put the super back with a brood box of old frames on top. We have had a sustained spell of hot sunny weather in the last few weeks and if this weather continues I will take some more honey before feeding the box and possibly leaving it with two brood boxes of bees and stores.

I have a lot of undrawn brood frames an fear not enough bees to get them all drawn out before the winter.

Midnight. Norman's allotment hive

One of my nucs has taken exception to the thymol crystals treatment and I found a clump of bees under the roof when I was checking the box feeder I put on yesterday. I have moved the the bees from the roof and left the roof off but there was still a clump of bees on the front of the hive even after I had smoked them down. However, some were taking the feed.

Normans allotment hive next to the German queen didn't settle well with their new queen in the summer and swarmed (or did they build up too fast for me and got tight for space?). I took out the swarm queen cell and made a nuc up with it (that nuc is one of the few left in a nuc box and is now in Old Costessy). I then put in a frame from the German queen and raised some queen cells from her. The first German queen Norman's bees raised they didn't like and they started raising more queens cells (as did the bees in the North Walsham swarm box that also had a German queen cell). I took out the queen from Norman's box and put her in a nuc box (I watched that fail to fight off the wasps and then get robbed out. It all happened so fast there wasn't anything I could do about it) and I left Norman's bees to get on with it thinking it was late in the year to be raising queens. Back link

Today was my first inspection to see how they are getting on. They have a laying queen (although I didn't see her) and are a small but seemingly happy colony. I gave them a completely capped frame of honey from Bill's greengage hive, closed them up and put a block of fondant on. I didn't treat them with thymol. Who knows they may just make it through the winter.

I did the opposite with the North Walsham's bees and their German queen cell. I left the queen in but took the queen cells out and put those in a nuc box. The queen survives but the bees tore down one of the queen cells within days of me putting it in the nuc box (I wanted to give a queen cell to the Greengage swarm who had lost theirs). The other cell came to nothing.

I think nuc boxes are only really viable for breeding queens in middle of the season when conditions are optimum.

Midnight's colony seems to be still going strong after their thymol treatment. I'm feeding them at the moment with a bucket feeder and plan to take them out to Ringland soon.

I put mouse guards on the three Bluebell Road hives today they all still have syrup in their buckets.

Autumn feed

Although in the middle of the day it has been hot and sunny for quite a few days now (if not weeks!) the days are getting shorter and the nights colder. Autumn is officially here and winter not so far away. I am still feeding the bees in all of my hives except for a few of the bigger ones in Old Costessy. Those are still making honey.

I am trying to unite small colonies with more bees to boost their numbers and sorting out brood boxes, floors, roofs and entrance blocks as I empty my nuc boxes. I have yet to start fitting mouse guards. Most of the colonies have had some thymol cystals spread along the lugs (not those still making honey) and several hives now have a block of fondant on.

I have brought the box feeders in to play today and I'm on my tenth 25 Kilo bag of sugar.

Box 8, Box 3

I took Box 8 with Greengage in it out to Ringland yesterday.

The flying bees left behind took no time tearing down the newspaper between the two brood boxes to get at a new queen. As I went to check them this afternoon a bee flew out of the entrance carrying a piece of newspaper about an inch and a half long and up and over a large apple tree it flew taking the strip of newspaper with it.

I merged the frames of the two boxes together. Hopefully that is another queen that will now have a colony that will be strong enough to take her through the winter. The box they are in is Box 3. It has a feeder bucket on.

I put another full bucket of feed on Honey Stripes hive and the two Willow09 hives. On my next visit I should open them up and take one of the brood boxes off Honey Stripes hive (she has three) and possibly put an extra brood box on each of the other two.