Still making queen cells. And ants gone.

Hives record updated.

I went to the nature reserve today and checked the two hives and the nuc there. Both one of the hives and the nuc had unsealed queen cells - in mid July! I destroyed both. I also fiddled with the frames a little, adding 2 frames of eggs and larvae to Hive Boudicca since it is still weak: I want to get all those brood frames drawn and full of honey before the season starts drawing to a close. I also removed the undrawn super box from this hive so the colony will really focus on the brood box (there is still a mostly-full super on).

I had pulled one of those frames of brood from Nuc Dido, where a queen cell and a full population again made me realise that managing a nuc is another skill - I replaced the frame of brood with an undrawn frame which I hope will keep them busy.

The other frame of brood I had removed from Hive Amidala, the hive with the deep brood box. It's good to have got one of those standard depth brood frames out of that hive - there's another to go but I left it in there today since it was so full of brood - instead I moved the frame to the edge of the box hoping that splitting the brood will not matter in the warm weather we're having, and also that the queen will not lay here any more. Fingers crossed on that one. Getting those shorter frames out is urgent since again the bees had built wild comb beneath them which is a complete waste of effort when they could be doing other things. I had the queen from this hive crawling up my arm today after I was juggling her off the frame I moved. I managed to get her back into the hive, though she disappeared down onto the first frame (near the entrance) so I hope she orientates back to the brood area ok - should be fine.

The total honey crop for the 2 hives here is very disappointing. I'll need to make sure I don't react to this by not leaving enough honey on for the winter. I am again targeting 40lbs per hive.

Oh, it might be worth mentioning too that after having cleared out that ant nest from above the crown board of Hive Boudicca for the past 4 inspections, the nest has not made a reappearance this time! Yeah.

Swarminess record? Queen cell in new colony within a month.

Hives record updated.

Well, this season's cavalcade of beekeeping comedy continues. Boudicca is definitely queenless, and even broodless. Dido (the little nuc I set up a matter of weeks ago) already has a queen cell. I removed this frame and put it in Boudicca. Workers from any resultant queen (if she lays) will not be foraging till late August (that bee maths stuff in soooooo useful). Honey season is therefore over for that hive, so I may just remove the honey super on the next inspection and feed them so they can build some stores up in the brood chamber and get some energy on board to draw some of the still naked foundation following a recent colony split I performed. Was it OK to remove the queen cell from Dido? Well, I had not seen the queen there (she was not marked yet, but even so I think I would have spotted her in a nuc) so perhaps she swarmed after that queen cell was sealed? I'm slightly doubtful of that since the colony population seemed high, but even if by removing the queen cell I have made the colony queenless, they can always raise another queen cell from the ample eggs in that hive. I hope. I am left wondering how to control the population of a nuc. The bees raised a queen cell in 3 and a half weeks after this nuc was set up, and I'm unsure how to prevent this. They clearly do this since the space is so limited, but that's just a fundamental property of a nuc. I'll need to give this some thought and read up on it. At least now they have a new frame of undrawn foundation to worry about.


Hive Amidala doing a little better, though still suffering from the splits (and possible swarms) of earlier in the season and therefore a little limited in population and honey production for this time of year. The in-progress brood population is huge, however, so hopefully they can stash away some honey through the latter half of July to somewhat save this tragic season. I am, however, still learning a lot, and my enthusiasm and enjoyment is still high despite the challenges!


Oh, another thing is that I checked and removed the varroa floors from both Amidala and Boudicca. Although I had not vaselined/greased the boards, I was still delighted to see a tiny varroa count. Yippeeeee! The count in Amidala this time last year was in the thousands! My Apiguard treatment last August and my oxalic acid treatment last December must have worked wonders! I've also been removing sealed drone brood every now and then, so I guess that helped too. Speaking of which, Amidala has a deep brood box, but from a recent transfer I still have 2 standard depth brood frames in there. Both of these have very substantial wild drone comb beneath them with brood, some of which has just been sealed. Much more will be sealed before the next inspection, at which time I will again remove and destroy this comb. Ha! I'm much happier with the varroa population this year than last. Also worth saying that I shifted the frames around slightly to rotate these shallower frames nearer to the hive edge so I can remove them in a month or so and at last get my colonies more stable before winter.


Lastly, that improvised contact feeder (pictured in post below) seemed to work well on the nuc. Having said that, given that colony's vigour I'm wondering whether I should have fed them at all, even with that small amount!

Ant nest above the crownboard! And setting my car on fire.

Hives record updated.

Great news! The queen in Amidala has hatched and she is in action: eggs and larvae. I marked her (white spot so I can see more easily) and as I removed the cage she clung onto it and then wandered around my hand. Get off! You'll only hurt yourself there! I gingerly got her back onto a frame and closed up quickly, happy that this colony is back in action. After stashing away a whole super worth of honey before the end of April, this colony has probably gone a little backwards since then in terms of stores. Well, I did split it and it was queenless for a while. I'm happy now, though. Also, I put in a varroa board - it's the first time this year and is really overdue.

I opened the little nuc too, and saw a queen (I think!). She was a little small, and I lost sight of her as I reached up to grab my queen marking cage. Argh! There were no eggs, and from her size and the timing of the queen cell I figured that she was probably a virgin so I decided to close up quickly. Very exciting. When this colony is up and running I can use it as an observation hive with the vertical glass roof attachment and carry system it has. The colony is hungry, though. The stores are very low and I should probably feed it. My contact feeders are too wide to fit above the crownboard - I'll need to look up how to make one myself from a jam jar (pierced lid? muslin?).

Boudicca was as grumpy as every. The first thing I saw was an ant's nest above the crownboard: loads of ant running over it and inside the roof and lots of ant eggs! I let them know what I though of their plans to share this hive with the bees. I'll need to be vigilant that they don't return. I wonder if this is unusual. I'm pretty sure these bees are queenless. 2 queen cells are still in place and I'm guessing these will hatch very soon. I certainly hope so.

I was in a real rush to get away since I was playing in a tennis match (doubles with my wife - we got murdered). In my rush I put my smoldering smoker (corked up) in the footwell of the passenger's side of the car, sitting on a stone slab. All went well till I got close to home and breaked too hard as the car in front did what only London drivers can make cars do: hot ash poured onto the footwell carpet mat. I got home a minute later and ripped the mat out to find 4 nice scorch marks. I had recently bought the car from my mother-in-law. It's a lovely old Merc: 20 years of loving care from her (and others) and then I decide to start trashing it. I'll need to come up with a better way of transporting that smoker, since I often have issues with it still being hot when I leave the apiary.

No pictures on my blog for a while, eh? I'll work to correct this.

More missing queens and another split

Hives record updated.

Well, the tough second season of beekeeping continues. Amidala's queen cell which I introduced at the last inspection has still not hatched yet. I'm hoping / expecting it will in the next couple of days. What was the chewed look at the end of the queen cell? And why when I looked through the tiny hole could I see something dark in there but no movement? Is there another queen loose in the hive from another queen cell which I had thought was always empty? I resolved to wait till the next inspection. Amidala is certainly not putting away any more honey stores - it's been a real missed opportunity, especially with the weather having turned and now being beautifully sunny.

Boudicca's nasty inhabitants seem determined to keep me confounded, too. The queen eluded me (has she swarmed?) and I ripped down many queen cells, some of which were capped (how is this possible as I inspected only 8 days ago!?) I left 2 queen cells in there - if the old queen is gone then good riddance, and perhaps her offspring may yield more pleasant bees (though better to requeen from another source when I have one available). I also split away 3 brood frames (one with another sealed queen cell) and put them into a nuc (now called Hive Dido). The nuc I used is the observation nuc I recently bought. It's a standard nuc, but has an attachment I can use instead of the roof which allows the mounting of a frame within glass.

Despite my recent successes with Cleopatra, the colony I split from Amidala, I now have reservations about all 3 colonies I have at my London site (Amidala, Boudicca and Dido), and even if they get through the season well, I've definitely not managed them in a honey-maximising fashion! I'm still learning though. On thing which is becoming abundantly clear is that I have a strong reticence to artificial swarm properly on my London site. After all the fuss last year with my being allowed to use the site and then being threatened with eviction, I'm reticent to created more boxes, even temporarily. A new sight would certainly be better, though I suppose compromising on the site is a feature of most urban beekeeping.

Fiddly stuff

Hives record updated.

Certainly beekeeping was easier in the first year, when a caught swarm and a newly created colony seemed happy to draw comb and make babies and honey.

I approached Hive Amidala knowing something was not right: very few bees were coming and going. I opened up to a louder than normal buzz - these girls are usually pussies - and saw there seemed to be plenty of bees. Stores in the supers were no greater than at the time of the last inspection despite the very hot weather. In the brood box, the 4 queen cells were still capped. Curious. I ripped open 2 to find they were empty! Empty!? It did not look to me as if they had been used and the hinge cap resealed. Were these sealed play cells? It looked to me that this colony was seriously queenless, with no natural hope of salvation.

I opened Hive Boudicca and was greeted with a very different story. The bees had nearly filled the super which had only been one third full a week or so ago. In the brood box I saw the queen (looking a little skinnier than I expected), lots of brood and eggs, and 5 queen cells: one sealed (huge one), one unsealed with a larvae and 3 with lots of royal jelly (and I guess either small larvae or eggs). Inspiration struck (or at least I hope that's what it was) and I worked quickly. I destroyed the 4 uncapped queen cells and took out the frame with the capped queen cell. I also took out a frame with brood and eggs. I then opened Hive Amidala and made space for 2 frames in the brood box, then brushed the bees off the 2 frames from Boudicca (buzz buzz buzz not happy) and put them in Amidala. I also took a redundant, undrawn super off of Amidala and put in on Boudicca for the extra space they needed and quickly closed both hives up. This swap of frames was not ideal since Boudicca has standard depth brood frames, and Amidala has deep brood frames, but whatever. I'm also worried the brood chamber in Boudicca may now be a little small with 2 frames missing.

So, I think I now have Amidala with no queen, a healthy looking queen cell and some young eggs for good measure in case the bees decide to bring some of them on. And I have Boudicca with the old queen and no queen cells. So, happy days? Well, like I say it's certainly not as easy as first season beekeeping, but I am enjoying the challenge, and am hoping that I can manage the bees sufficiently through this season to do them proud. I won't be shokced to see disaster next time I open the hives, but I have my fingers crossed.

I'll need to get out to Hive Cleopatra in the next few days. It's a 30 minute drive away, and I'm going to the Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow - I'll have to be disciplined and schedule a proper trip in.

Queenless

Hives record updated.

8 days since my last inspection, when I split Amidala and created Cleopatra, I went back to look at my first 2 hives. Amidala now seems queenless: no eggs and 4 sealed queen cells. Sealed! They must have started these the second I closed the hive last time. What happened to the wonderful old queen I cannot say. I did see eggs there last time (though not many) despite not having seen the queen for a while. 3 of the queen cells are on the bottom of the drawn bit of comb towards the bottom of a deep frame. These cells looked good (in the way that queen cells can). The other was on a different frame near the top of a face - more of an "emergency queen cell" type affair. I'm at a loss to know what might have happened. This colony has accumulated no more honey since last time, but then I did steal a large number of their population last time to make a new hive. And when did the queen go? Swarmed? Killed? I'm struggling to see the learning point for my beekeeping here, except that I need to build up more experience, speak with more beekeepers, and keep vigilant with regular inspections. I left all 4 queen cells. Should I have bumped a few off? I don't know, but I felt better to let nature takes its course in this case. I'm looking forward to a new queen coming on stream, which might be 20 days from now (6th June) give or take a few days. I'm not sure when I should inspect next - I don't want to be dabbling whilst a mated queen is returning.

Hive Boudicca seemed quite perky, bad tempered blighters though they are. I saw no queen cells in there (I saw eggs but did not spot the queen). There were lots of sealed drone brood cells at the bottom of the frames and I ripped a lot of these off and discarded them to keep the varroa down. Having said that, I did not see many mites in there. They've definitely got more focused on stashing honey away - the super is now 2 thirds full.

That's it for now. It all seemed so much easier last year when I caught a few swarms and knocked up a few flat-packed hives. Real beekeeping seems a little more fraught with uncertainty and the vagaries of nature.

Hive split and fingers crossed

Having consulted with the nice people at Ealing Beekeepers Association yesterday (cheers Andy!), I decided to go through with splitting the hive and creating another colony as I had originally planned. The view, given the recent weather, the spotting of eggs on Thursday and so on, was that the old queen was likely still in the hive and the removal of the remaining queen cell (actually I think there may be more than one left on that frame) and a bunch of bees might do the trick. If the old queen was NOT there then the workers will be able to create an emergency queen cell, and in any event I have time to requeen if they do not or if a resultant queen is not a good one. As I looked through the hive I DID spot some more eggs, indicating that the old queen probably is/was in the hive. Interestingly, though, these eggs were not in a neatly laid pattern but instead laid sporadically across the cells of the frame on which I spotted them. Hhhmmmm.....

The operation was fairly simple. Since I had an old national brood box (half full of honey) on the hive above the queen excluder I just moved the frame with the queen cells and brood into this box and put in an additional frame of brood in from my other hive. I made this up as a stack (bottom to top): crown board, super, brood box, crown board. I then wrapped it with a cross of strong straps. The crown boards kept the stack sandwiched without a heavy roof to contend with, and both have their feeder holes covered with plastic mesh which I pin down (I do this to all my crown boards). I used the super in the stack since the queen cell was protruding below its frame in the brood box and I wanted to make sure it did not get bashed. I threw the lot in the back of my car, sprayed it with water to keep it cool and drove to my mother-in-law's stunning garden just outside London in Gerrards Cross (about 15 miles from the original site). The site is perfect: hidden on a low flat roof with easy exterior access, discrete, south facing, sheltered from behind with a huge hedge and in a very garden-rich area. Together with a stand, varroa mesh floor, roof and entrance reducer it looks beautiful in place. Pictures coming soon. I've named the new hive Cleopatra. The colony has a decent store of honey, two frames of brood, at least one queen cell (hard to see on that wild comb below the frame in question and there may be three), and really quite a lot of bees too. Moving the bees seemed to have been quite simple. I hope they weren't too traumatised by the experience.

The little apidea mating hive I have in my own garden seems a failure. I opened it this afternoon to find only a few (50?) bees remaining, all rather stuporous with none of the natural comb I had hoped to see being built from the frame tops, despite my having melted starter wax strips in there beforehand. The queen cell I had wired in had been abandoned, and so wasted. Shame. Why the failure? Not enough bees? Inclement weather for the past few days? I don't know. It does seem to me to be quite a big ask to dump a small number of bees in the box and hope the will just get on with even a little comb building whilst in those new surroundings. This tiny group of bees seems to lack any critical mass. I think what I'll do is put the apidea, with the bottom entrance open, above the feeder hole of a crown board in a happy hive and get those bees to build the comb in situ, so that when I put the box into action it's all ready to go. Then I'll try again if and when I feel more confident and I have more queen cells to spare.

Muppet

Oh, such a muppet. It's all been a good learning experience, fair enough, but having read further (I have read all this stuff before but apparently I have a leaky head) it seems that swarms leave the hive "around the time the queen cell is capped." So the chance is that my queen left shortly before I inspected yesterday. Probably. Since there were still eggs there. Gee, there were still a load of bees left in the hive, though. Anyhow, this dawning realisation makes my actions today (see prior post) even more idiotic. I'm upset with myself, and upset for my bees. It's quite possible that last queen cell will make it through and no harm will be done (save having lost my original queen a fair few bees), but I should have spotted those queen cells in my inspection last week (they will have been there then, I think, (or perhaps I have been a tiny bit unlucky with the timing and they were just being built up). It's all good learning, and I shall try to use these experiences to make me a better beekeeper.

Bad beekeeping

I am so upset. I'm sitting here in a really black mood. It was stupid of me really.

I cooked up a plan on what to do with my queen cells. Re-checking of "Guide to Bees and Honey (Hooper), "Bees at the Bottom of the Garden" (Campion), BBKA's "advice to beekeepers, and a number of web resources http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/artswarm.html I decided on a slight twist on the typical - see the bottom of that Dave Cushman link where it says "my particular favourite method". I even lined up my mother-in-law (who lives 15 miles away) to agree to take a hive in here garden. All ready, I headed on site with new floor, a couple of supers, roof, etc - I won't bore you with the details. Anyway, the procedure, much like any artificial swarm, relies on finding the queen. For 40 minutes I checked and checked. I deeply regretted not re-marking her during an earlier inspection earlier in the year when she was easier to find - I could find her nowhere. Had she already swarmed? I could still see tiny larvae in the hive (bah - I should have searched more carefully for eggs, which I know I had seen yesterday). The 3 queen cells were still in place. I then made the sensible decision to abort and shut up the hive and de-kitted.

Then it struck me - the idea of an idiot. I had the little polystyrene mating hive with me - why not go back in and take one of the queen cells out, a few bees and get cracking trying to set up a new colony that way? After all, that's why I had bought it. So, knife in hand I began: opening up the hive and cutting. I ruined the first queen cell. I still could have stopped at this point, but went for the next. This was cleaner, and I got it into the little mating hive with some bees I quickly brushed off the comb (ha - would it not be ironic if I had got the old queen in this process - this does not bear thinking about) and I shut it up. I got the hive home and it's now sitting in my garden, having had the little feeder filled up with thick sugar solution. The bees are out (and in I hope) and perhaps it will work, perhaps it would not.

So, why so stupid? Well, what if the old queen HAS swarmed? This was not obvious from the number of bees in the hive, but it's a big, vigorous colony so it's possible. I've just removed 2 out of 3 queen cells, arguably leaving the smallest, and if there's no incumbent queen this is just not an acceptable risk for my favourite colony. Again, this process was really only sensible if either I had knowledge the old queen was still in residence or if I had removed the first queen cell cleanly.

Of course if the old queen has NOT swarmed, then I'm not well set up either, since there's still a queen cell in the hive. It's just not ideal - and all because I could not find the queen - and all because I had not adequately marked her or rather not remarked her since her spot had worn off.

I'm dreading my next inspection in a week's time. Fingers crossed that by then I'll find something to smile about.

Queen cells !

Queen cells - 3 of 'em - in Hive Amidala. Today's inspection went well apart from that. I spotted eggs in that hive, though the queen eluded me. I'm guessing she's still in there......

What to do?

It's all somewhat complicated by where the queen cells are. I've recently moved onto a deep brood box in which there are lots of deep frames and one normal depth frame which I had moved into that box when I introduced it a few weeks ago. THAT'S where the queen cells are: beneath the shallower frame. This greatly confuses the typical "artificial swarm" techniques I read in the books. These are the first queen cells I've had to deal with, and I am looking for answers. A made-up variation on the books' version of the artificial swarm springs to mind - I will think this through further. I'm also tempted to employ one of my 3 new apidea mating hives. I'll get my thinking cap on and report back. Tomorrow's weather forecast is good. I'll need to spring into action then.

As a footnote - I had planned to put another super on Hive Amidala, but the old standard depth brood (acting as a large super above the queen excluder) is still only one third / one half full of honey. These bees are not swarming due to lack of space. And they're still cracking on with drawing comb in the the new deep brood box area, so that's not why either. I guess they just want to swarm. Anyway, thinking cap on....