Association Apiary

A good turn out of beekeepers and interested observers, young and not so quite so young, was had at the latest apiary visit on Sunday.

After a glorious week of sunshine followed by a soaking, the rain just about held off. The bees were flying but it wasn’t very good conditions for inspections so we concentrated on assessing the food stores in all the hives.

Hive 7 had a feeder on but was now overcrowded with bees spilling into the feeder area. A super was added to these.

In Hive 6 the bees were doing a good job in drawing out the super frames and making stores. Similarly in Hive 8 where the bees had starting capping some of the honey.

Hives 6, 7 and 8 are ready to move to their new home in Broughton shortly so these were made ready with hive straps and travelling screens ready to hand.

A quick whizz through the supers in Hives 1 to 5 next.

Hive 1 had stores on about 5 frames in the lower super, the 2nd super wasn’t being used. A clearer board was put under the top super ready to remove.

Hive 2 was similar to hive 1 with the stores just starting to be capped in the lower super. Again a clearer board was put under the top super.

Hive 3 is the smallest colony and there is still only brood on about 4 frames, 2 of which are super frames with natural comb built in the gap underneath. The plan for this one is to put it in a poly nuc to overwinter.

Hive 4 had most of the super frames drawn and a mix of sealed and unsealed honey, some pollen over the brood nest and some stores eaten and now refilled.

Hive 5 has always been the strongest hive and despite splits and swarms has the most honey. One super is pretty well full with a couple of lovely sealed frames. The second super also has a few good frames of honey. An optimistic 3rd super was empty so again a clearer board was put under this one. This hive should get us some honey to pay the apiary rent this year.

This gives us a good idea of how the colonies are doing and we will make a plan for settling the hives down for the autumn, the feeding regime and varroa monitoring.

Plenty to discuss at our next meetings.

We will be having an inspection at the association apiary on Sunday 21st August
We will aim to start at 1pm, but as usual this will be weather permitting.
All welcome, please bring clean beesuits if you have them.

Sorry about the late notice but we have decided to cancel the association apiary visit scheduled for tomorrow 14th August.
The road will be closed at Neidpath and there is no great urgency to inspect the bees.
We may go next next weekend, so look out for the emails or check the website.

There was a good turnout of beekeepers old and young for the apiary visit on 31st July.

The threatened rain stayed at bay and it was pleasantly warm for inspections.

We split into 2 groups to assess all the colonies.

The 5 original colonies (or their offspring for those that swarmed) are all confirmed now to have laying queens.
Hives 1 and 2 are going steady. Hive 3 is still small and still needs feeding. Hives 4 and 5 are filling 2 supers – that will be one for them and with a bit of luck 1 for the association.

Of the 5 new nucs, 2 have just gone to Kailzie gardens and are settling in there well. The 3 remaining nucs are all expanding nicely. The queens are easy to spot since they are marked with numbered plastic disks. One of them is a bit behind the others and still needs supplementary feeding. These 3 colonies are hopefully going to go to a site near Broughton.

The last colony to be inspected was the large hived swarm. This is doing well and needs a super because it’s sale and move has been postponed.

All in all the colonies are faring well. The next inspection is scheduled for Sunday 14th August 1.30pm