Autumn Preparations...

Somehow I'm feeling organised!  I'm not sure why, but I think it's because I have started preparing for the Autum now!

Ok, so I will confess I probably was forced into it, but still, it's a start!

I nominally have 2 hives at the apiary, and Dave has 2.  We help each other out, but we kind of think we each have our own!  Anyway, one of my hives has been quite prodigious; I extracted 51 lbs of honey in July.  However, this hive became Queenless (I don't really know why) but continued to produce honey and as of last weekend I had 4 supers stacked on it. Two are pretty much capped and the other two are perhaps 50% full.

The other hive I have was 'sick' earlier in April but it pulled through and has left me with a crammed full super of capped honey. There is a queen in this one!

So back to Autumn management. What to do with the Queenless hive? Well, I decided it was better to not generate problems next spring by not having equipment available for new splits and swarm control, so I united the hives.

I removed two full supers and I will extract honey from these. The resulting combined hive now looks like this...

Outer cover

Inner cover

Deep

Super

Bee escape

Super

Super

Newspaper

Queen excluder

Deep

Base board

The idea is to keep the Queen way down in the hive, to clear and then remove the deep and a super from the top (for later use?) and to leave two supers of stores to the bees for the Autumn.  If all goes well (that's got to happen at some point, right?) I'll further reduce the hive for winter - but I'll move full stores from the 'removed' deep into the deep at the bottom!

I will then have lots of equipment and drawn frames for the coming spring!

The mite count I did last week showed some moderate number of mites.  I'll treat once things have settled down after the combination!  Depending on the count level then I will treat with MAQS or try oxalic acid for the first time!!!

It's a plan of sorts!

Sting in the tail; well the neck actually

I finished beekeeping today at Ladue. My first stop was at the split I made for Jürgen in his beeyard. This is doing very well! You may remember it was basically Queenless in my backyard for quite a while. I relocated it, put in some eggs and brood and a couple of days after that a new queen.  When I looked in today it was filling very strongly with new larvae; probably 4 or 5 frames.  I didn't bother to find the queen!  So I reckon this needs some supers and soon!

At my apiary in Ladue the hive with the week queen I replaced has also taken well. I need to find some frames to complete a second deep and this needs to be done reasonably quickly.

The hive "north" of this was also very strong again containing plenty of brood, eggs and larvae, but no sign of any swarm cells. I put on 2 supers.

The final hive; the one I always do last in this beeyard because they are temperamental, was like the northern hive. There was plenty of brood, eggs and larvae and again no swarm cells or sign of any being made. 

The problem here was that a couple of bees somehow got in my suit and I now have a nice sting on my neck! Anyway they also deserved supers and I put on 3. Two are already drawn out the other is mostly foundation.

A good day's beekeeping and I'm now ready for a nectar flow!

Swarms!

I checked the "swarmed" hive at the gardens yesterday. No sign of any brood or eggs so I reasoned they were Queenless still. It's nearly 2 weeks since I was in and found what I assumed was a post-swarm hive. So what to do now?

I put in a call to a couple of folks and I got a lead to a swarm of bees that was on Craigslist. Quite how they got Internet connectivity I don't know; that's another avenue to explore I guess! Anyway the swarm of bees was located on the ground at a house 20 mins from home.

I called the home owner last night and arranged to look this morning. It looked like rain so I went out without being able to check if they were still there. But they were, still on the ground.

Now this is the first swarm I have ever caught. I was a bit nervous, but the bees were every bit as docile as you're told a swarm should be. I simply picked them up and put them in the new "Pershing" box I have. My apologies to those (bees and humans) that didn't make the trip!

So once in the box I drove them to the gardens and installed/combined them with the existing hive. I dumped the swarm in a new box with drawn comb, put a sheet of newspaper on top and then placed the Queenless hive on top of this. I hope they will get along together and get cracking with all the nectar that's about to explode from the trees and flowers (I hope). I will check to see how they are on Sunday and remove one if the deep boxes so I get back down to 2.

I don't know if there was a queen in the swarm, and I don't know if there was a queen in the "Queenless hive. I guess if both are there there'll be a fight!

It was an excellent first swarm experience! Can't wait to do it again!

Swarm on the ground

Into the "Pershing" box!

At the Gardens

Combined with the "Queenless" hive.