Association apiary, Barns: activity at apiary on 4th June
Mentors were David Ferguson and Mandy Clydesdale: with an excellent mix of this year’s beginners, keen beekeepers with a couple of years’ experience, one Interested Party, and 2 youngsters – great to see them all. Young Sam had a new beesuit, and is always very hands-on, so long as the open hive is low enough for him to see!
Hive 1: queen seen, no queen cells seen, should be OK till next week. Has an additional brood box on it for drawing out foundation.
Hive 2: 4 queen cells seen: two were removed, and a nuc formed from the queen and 3 frames of brood/stores: additional house bees were shaken in to increase her workforce. (Nuc 3, beside the storage cupboard)
Hive 3: Ok, no queen cells seen, progressing well.
Hive 4: checked, OK, no queen cells, queen not seen but brood visible
Swarm (next to fir tree, not allocated a number yet): clustered well together, drawing on the foundation – beautifully demonstrated by these girls! Might need the box turned through 90o; an empty supper and a feeder added.
Hive 5: brood seen, has an unmarked queen, needs to be found and marked. 3 queen cells removed. Hive prepared for moving.
Hive 6: Queen not seen, no larvae, but bees calm – probably have a newly mated queen who is not laying yet. Hive prepared for moving.
Nuc 1: has died out, soiling suggests that they succumbed to nosema, the nuc was split from a colony that also had developed nosema (not confirmed by analysis). Unfortunately there is currently no treatment (medication) for nosema other than replacing combs (eg Bailey comb exchange: it had been too early in the year to do that), or requeening with a queen from a different(and hopefully more resistant) strain. The nuc box will be cleaned and sterilised with washing soda, the frames and wax burned.
Nuc 2: coming on well, brood seen: but they had outgrown their nuc box (drawn comb surrounded the feeder) so they were transferred to a brood box, with a super and feeder on top.
Nuc 3: formed this week from Hive 2.
Need to purchase: 1 brood box (minimum – this was before the requirements for 2 brood boxes at The Glen were requested on 8th June), minimum of 3 deep frames with foundation; 8 shallow frames with foundation.
Next week: 11th June
Hive 1: remove the additional brood box – to go to The Glen.
Add supers if necessary; identify the next series of hives for moving; identify any nucs/colonies ready to go out to new beekeepers.
Check status of each hive, and confirm that here’s a laying queen – all the colonies there should now have swarmed or else have been split, so should be building up for the main crop in July.
Check that all have stores in case the “June Gap” leaves them short of forage.
Nucs 2 & 3 may need more syrup until the foundation is drawn out.
Swarm: may need box turned through 90o , and more syrup in feeder, until more foundation drawn out – weather forecast is not good, so they may not be able to get out to gather nectar. It can have its own hive number allocated, unless it is going out to a new beekeeper.