Willow(2)09 vandalised, Old Costessy, Postwick

It was a bright sunny day after days of wind and rain. A check of the apiaries was in order. Willow(2)09 at the Bluebell road UEA Permaculture apiary has had an unwanted visit. The bucket feeder was laying by the hive empty with it's lid off and the brood box had the crown board off. I put the hive back together and seeing the size of the wooden poles left near by I fear for the other two hives. I will now need to visit this site frequently throughout the winter.

The bees in the bigger hives at Old Costessy were taking pollen in. One hive there still had a box feeder on . I took it off and replaced it with a block of fondant.

It was getting too late to see bees flying at Postwick but the hives there seem to be OK and all had fondant.

Honey Stripes

I put a complete block of fondant on top of Honey Stripe's three brood boxes. I may now have to pick another nice day and remove the queen excluder that is between box two and three as I don't want the bees to move up into the top box and leave the queen behind.

I also put a block of fondant onto Willow(1)09's hive. There was still feed in the bucket on that hive because the mesh in the lid had got blocked with crystalised sugar. I transfered that sugar syrup to Willow(2)09's hive that had an empty bucket on.

Warm enough to fly

The bees were out in force today.

I visited the bees at the Bluebell Road, Allotment 83 and Old Costessy apiaries and all the hives had flying bees.

Long Stratton Swarm

One of the hives with a box feeder on was the hive with the Long Sratton swarm in it - at least there were in it. As the sun came out this afternoon after recent days of rain I thought I would remove the empty feeder from the top of the brood box.Whilst unsticking the two the brood box moved and was strangely light. It didn't take much of an inspection to see that the bees have gone taking all stores with them. More likely any stores left behind have been cleaned out by bees from other colonies, whichever way, the result was that the box was empty of both bees and stores.

Bonus week, Tina

It's the end of a bonus week for the bees. The weather in the middle of the week was still and warm. Better than we often get on a summer's day. There wasn't much that I needed to do with the bees as they all have feed now. Although a few will soon have empty box feeders that I will remove and replace with a block of fondant. Some do still need mouse guards putting on.

GW's old brood box (now No6) seems to doing well with it's new queen. On watching the bees coming and going bringing in pollen and making the most of the fine weather I saw at least three drones fly into the entrance. Maybe they will keep a few through the winter or they just haven't thrown them out yet because of the warm Autumn weather.

I have moved Tina for the very last time to the end of the allotment.

Warm weather again

Today has been unusually warm for this time of year and the bees were out and about and bringing in pollen.

Postwick, Thorpe, Old Costessy

It was a very nice sunny day on Friday when I checked the hives a Postwick adding fondant thymol where required. All the hives there have fondant on now.

I gave each hive at Thorpe a sprinkle of ctystals and ablock of fondant.

Saturday it rained.

Today I made sure all the hives at Old Costessy have fondant on them. The strongest hive there is colony I have been describing as 'facing south' although it is now one of three hives facing south. It has two brood boxes and two supers on and a lot of bees in it.