New queen in Cleo

Hives record updated.

I inspected Hive Cleopatra and found eggs, young larvae and a NEW QUEEN! I am very excited about this. I trapped her and gave her a nice white dot (I know it's wrong colour but I just want the brightest I can to help me spot her.) I installed the queen excluder and put the undrawn super on top. This is wonderful news - the first time I've had a new laying queen bred in one of my own hives.

I also nipped a peek at Hive Boudicca at my other site (London) and put in 2 brood frames of foundation to replace the 2 I stole the other day to put in Hive Amidala. I didn't stop to look around.

Lastly, I also popped into Thornes Windsor today to buy some new kit (frames, foundation and the like). I saw that they have a whole  bunch of full nucs ready to go (I think they're all pre-sold). Each had 6 frames in and were stacked with bees. The price? £200 each! I've never bought bees, and am hoping I never have to. Apparently the ones in Thornes are flying off the shelves, so to speak.

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.

At a loss

My confusion with what's going on in Hive Cleopatra deepens.

My mother-in-law rang to say that she'd seen a swarm in her garden yesterday, presumably from the hive. I hurried out there and opened the hive. No sign of eggs (no surprises since it is a little early for a newly mated queen to be laying) and I could not find a queen. The bees seemed somewhat numerous (it's the first time I've opened this hive since I created it from a split of Hive Amidala, so it's tricky to judge anything from the quantity of bees) and they were very gentle. I searched for the empty queen cells, and only found one. One!? So who was that queen I saw on the roof at the weekend (the one I'm questioning why I put back on the hive entrance)? And why would the queen swarm yesterday? Surely not to leave no queens in the hive. I can only assume that the colony does have a queen (and therefore there is another vacated queen cell I just cannot find) and that the queen is either in the hive or was on a mating flight. It remains to be seen what's happened, but I think things may become clearer in time.

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.

Cleo - new site and teething problems

I popped up to see my mother-in-law today and nipped around for a quick look at the hive with no plan to open it since I was hoping the queen was hatching/mating/starting to lay and I wanted to stay away.

Here are some pictures of what I still think is one of the prettiest gardens I've ever seen.

Beautiful, eh?

The hive is on a flat roof, hidden by the house, and easily accessible from a high area of garden to the rear. South facing and totally sheltered. Perfect.

Not so perfect was what I found when I got there. A small band of bees (~50) were on the house roof above the hive. Puzzled, I peered up and saw a queen. I had only set this hive up very recently with no queen and a few queen cells. This was one from there. I noticed she had a slightly damaged wing on one side, but she looked big and beautiful apart from this. I picked here up, put her on the landing board, and she crawled into the hive.

What have I done? Why did I do it? I am at a loss to know what was going on. The group of bees around here had been fanning. Sign of a cast swarm? Had she tried to make a mating flight and been hampered by a damaged wing? Why was it damaged - misformed in the cell? Had she been on a mating flight and tried to return and just not quite made it? I decided not to open the hive to see whether there was another queen in there. Perhaps I should have just left here where she was. Or perhaps popped her in a box and kicked off an new colony with her. I think more may become clear when I open the hive in a short while.

More bee maths

One of the obvious learning points from the fuss I recently generated after spotting queen cells is that I was just not up to speed enough with the details of some basic bee brood dynamics. There's a decent bee maths page which I've previously posted. A similar, though not quite identical, set of numbers can be found in Hooper's book (page 31 if you have the 4th edition). Alternatively, a decent aide-memoir suggested by some experienced beek friends of mine is "3-5-8-5-3" which when mapped as a cumulative series becomes 3-8-16-21-24 which indicates the number of days after laying on which certain things happen: 3=eggs hatch, 8=brood cells sealed, 16=queens hatch, 21=workers match, 24=drones hatch. Simple to remember, and although not strictly as the books would say the maths works (workers and drone actually cap slightly later on average) it's good enough for me at the moment to help me remember when things happen and hence make me a better reader of my hives.

What does this mean for my hives right now? Well, I recently set up Hive Cleopatra with no queen and a few queen cells. I'm not sure when the eggs in those queen cells were laid, nor when the cells were capped, but I estimate the latter happened on maybe the 4th May. This would indicate hatching on 12th May with the hopefully mated queen laying around the 24th May (give or take a few days). Well, that's given me some form of expectations, vague though they are. Knowing this will make my future hive inspections much more informative.

Using an apidea

After my recently comically bad (or was it tragically bad?) attempt at using an apidea, I have seen the error of my ways and read up a little on them. For example, this is a decent link on how to use them. The next time I have queen cells to spare I'm going to try one out, but I'll need to prepare the box first.