Two weeks of hard work!

I came home from vacation last week to find the girls in my large hive at home have been working hard and packing in the honey! In the last 2 weeks all 5 supers have been almost filled! I need to check my other hives ASAP to see when I will harvest, but it all looks rather good for July 4th!

The Hunt for Drone Congregation Areas!

Well we did manage to go and hunt for the DCAs near Selborne. My Dad, Matt and I went for a lovely 4 mile walk through the gorgeous Hampshire countryside looking in three locations for the DCAs.  Sadly we didn't find any drones, but it was a beautiful day and we enjoyed ourselves as the photos testify!

Next time maybe I'll try and find a local beekeeper who actually knows their location! Nevertheless I have a big thank you to say to the chaps at Gilbert White's House in Selborne - Flair Kitching the Assistant Manager and David Standing the Head Gardener. Their instructions to find the locations were wonderful.  The fact we didn't find any bees there seemed only a very minor failing!

Here are some other views from our walk!

Hive-tastic!

Leaving for our vacation this afternoon so I said goodbye to my bees! It's very important they know we're going away and why!

Anyway the hives in my neighbours have not really taken any syrup in the last few days, so I didn't add any more. But I did rearrange the frames to help to encourage them to draw out more foundation.

The hives in my yard are great! Three supers are pretty much full. The two other supers are there to be drawn out and also for some space should we get a nectar flow!

The other hive yard has space in its two supers but I have one in reserve should it be needed!

Bring it on!

Setting Up For Our Vacation

Our vacation is looming fast and it's time to set the hives up so they don't need attention for a few weeks!

Susan has kindly offered to feed the hives that are in my neighbours yard. I put a gallon of syrup in each yesterday and we'll feed these as long as it takes to get the bees to draw out the frames of foundation.

I managed to look in my Botanical Garden hives today. The hive I started from a nuc was doing rather too well! It had out-grown the single deep and I found brood in the super I had moved from the adjacent hive. So I moved this super to the bottom of the hive and I also added new deep to the top of the hive; having moved some frames up into it. The other hive at the gardens is blooming too! I reversed the deeps, moved the super that was full of brood up above the deeps and then added a fifth (yes fifth!) super!!!! Three supers are being filled and new foundation is being drawn out; the other two supers are empty, but have a lot of drawn comb, so I'm optimistic these will see some action!

That just leaves the two hives in the yard. I think I will try to look through these on Friday morning and I may add some more supers (my last ones) just in case there happens to be a major nectar flow while we're gone!!

Feeding Time!

The two hives that I made from the city hive have been slow to grow and little new comb has been drawn out. So I decided to start a regime of feeding. I added a feeder and about half a gallon of 1:1 syrup last Thursday and today (4 days later) added a further gallon of 1:1 syrup to each hive. Clearly the girls are enjoying their feast! Hopefully this will stimulate brood rearing and some comb construction.

While the hives may not have any honey this year I'm determined to build them up for the winter and homey production next year!

Bee S.O.S!

I had my first emergency call on Saturday!  My friends Mike and Monica have/had 2 hives that are in trouble. They lost one and called me for help with their remaining hive.  They think the hive they lost was due to Small Hive Beetles. The hive just declined over a period of time and the health and vitality plummeted!  When I saw it there were lots of larvae present in the honey - an unpleasant, nasty mess !It's very sad and I know what they went through.  A couple of years ago I nearly lost a hive the same way, but managed to catch it early enough to do something about it!

So their other hive is currently queenless. I'm not sure why, but they had tried to introduce a new queen but this was not successful, so I was asked if I had any frames of eggs and larvae I could donate in order to stimulate the bees to rearing new queen.  I think we hit on a good solution. Mike and I checked on my observation beehive (the 5-frame nuc) - we found the perfect frame! Eggs (I think - it's so hard to tell) and lots of larvae - all uncapped.  We found the queen on this frame so I am fairly confident there should be eggs present.  Also, removing this frame of eggs also helps me manage my observation hive as it helps to keep the number of bees in the nuc under control. If this tactic fails I may just let them start a new colony using the queen and frames in the observation hive.  At least I won't have to worry about how to overwinter this hive!

Anyway, they will leave their hive alone for about a week, and then check for emergency queen cells.  If cells are present then it should be another week or so before a queen emerges and then another couple more weeks before she gets mated and starts to lay. I think if they inspect the hive this coming weekend and find cells they should leave the hive alone for at least a month.

I am looking forward to seeing what happens!

Chilled Brood?

It's all bees this week!  I took the opportunity tonight to have a look though the hives that reside in the garden down the street.  It's been a while since I last had a look at these (April 21st) so I was interested to see what had happened.

Nearly four weeks ago I expanded one hive and moved two frames up into a new deep - along with just frames of foundation.  I did not feed this hive.  When I went in to inspect the hive this time around I found that there was a lot of uncapped pupae in these two frames.  At the time I thought it was probably a mistake to move the frames! Just after I moved the frames I thought it was way too early, but I still did it!

I think the bees that occupied these frames could not keep the brood warm and they have therefore been unable to rear new brood successfully. Interestingly I did see the Queen walking across the frames containing the "chilled" brood.

I didn't expand the hive that is adjacent to this "chilled" hive until May 5th when I thought the hive was ready to be expanded. At this time I added a second deep to the hive but again just moved a couple of frames up into it.  Like the other hive I didn't feed this hive.  When I did the inspection this afternoon I found the brood to have none of the issues the neighbouring hive has.  The brood is compact and there were few if any signs of any open cells containing pupae.

I do have supers on both hives.  The "chilled" hive predictably has no activity in it, but the other hive has some brood being developed in it. This super had partially drawn wax foundation in it. Clearly the queen prefers this to the frames of wax foundation that are next to the brood frames.

To conclude, I believe that by moving too few frames of brood up into the second deep, before the brood had sufficiently developed in the bottom deep, i.e. too early! I have compromised the development of the hive. The bees were not present in sufficient numbers to keep the brood warm. Also, I think that by not feeding the bees I have restricted their growth.

Therefore I intend to start feeding both hives in earnest! Even if these do not produce honey this year I can at least get them stronger for next winter!