What beekeeping related activities did you do recently?

[MrEd]

Settling in nicely. Fed the small swarm in the wooden mating hive, and housed it in a nuc with a couple of extra frames

All colonies flying and bringing in stores, will hive them Saturday


Decided what to name these ones aswell….
Apollo, Gemini, Mercury, Artemis and Soyuz

 

[MrEd]

Housed 2 of them in national hives now from their nucs, never sure whether to chequer board the drawn comb from the nuc with fresh undrawn foundation or to put all the nuc frames as a block in the middle with 3 fresh undrawn frames either side.

I don’t know so I have done one way and one the other to see if it makes a difference.

One of the nucs has gone queenless - which I was expecting to happen with this one as I think I damaged the queen doing the split last Saturday, she came out of the queen clip all lethargic and slow…. but they have thrown up two emergency cells, so I am leaving them to get on with it - I couldn’t find the queen or eggs anyway, just week old larvae was the youngest I saw. Will see what the emergency queen turns out like, and either stick with her or requeen from one of the other colonies or combine.
Here is the emergency cell. Looks ‘alright’ so will see….

 

[MrEd]

Sometimes you get lucky, the landowner where I keep my bees called me tonight and said ‘I think you have had a swarm there is a massive clump of bees on one of the empty hives’

So I went over and had a look, checked my hives (i inspected them Friday and didn’t think it was one of mine but looked anyway) - not a swarm from one of my hives, so a nice prime swarm for me and it landed about 5m away from my hives in my pallet of spare nucs and old frames

I love free bees

Now all in a nuc, couple of handfuls scooped in and the others marched right in. Bit of feed on and I will look at them in a week!

 

[SaraR]

Sometimes you get lucky, the landowner where I keep my bees called me tonight and said ‘I think you have had a swarm there is a massive clump of bees on one of the empty hives’

So I went over and had a look, checked my hives (i inspected them Friday and didn’t think it was one of mine but looked anyway) - not a swarm from one of my hives, so a nice prime swarm for me and it landed about 5m away from my hives in my pallet of spare nucs and old frames

I love free bees

Now all in a nuc, couple of handfuls scooped in and the others marched right in. Bit of feed on and I will look at them in a week!

View attachment 82233

Nice!

Although this year, I could have done without all the free bees that settled in my apiary. Had more than enough hives as was and then more and more swarms seemed to be attracted to it.

 

[Wander]

I've done absolutely no beekeeping activities whatsoever.
But I don't have any bees, so I wouldn't.
But I tell you what I did do.
Just over a week ago, whilst out for a walk, I saw a very dozy and weak bee who was clearly having trouble to take off and fly. Now, as it happens, I'd recently seen a segment on TV about just this and some kind of bee-rescue service saying it's because the bee lacks sugar and often leads to death because the bee can't take off and get to some flowery nectar. They even offered little pouches of sugar solution that you could offer such bees.
But I didn't have one of those.
What I noticed though were loads of wild marjoram in flower.
So I carefully scooped up the bee on to a twig and then deposited him on a bunch of flower heads. I saw him greedily lapping up the nectar, which was encouraging.
I just hope he could get enough to build up his strength and fly off safely and strongly.
But I'll never know.
Hope that counts as beekeeping.

 

[slowworm]

Sometimes you get lucky, the landowner where I keep my bees called me tonight and said ‘I think you have had a swarm there is a massive clump of bees on one of the empty hives’

So I went over and had a look, checked my hives (i inspected them Friday and didn’t think it was one of mine but looked anyway) - not a swarm from one of my hives, so a nice prime swarm for me and it landed about 5m away from my hives in my pallet of spare nucs and old frames

I love free bees

Now all in a nuc, couple of handfuls scooped in and the others marched right in. Bit of feed on and I will look at them in a week!

View attachment 82233

I was hoping the swarm season was over. I've managed to not have any of my colonies swarm this year, well so far.

How are your other bees settling in? As clam as expected? Are you likely to requeen the swarm or keep them as is?

 

[slowworm]

So I carefully scooped up the bee on to a twig and then deposited him on a bunch of flower heads. I saw him greedily lapping up the nectar, which was encouraging.
I just hope he could get enough to build up his strength and fly off safely and strongly.

That's what I do with all sorts of bees. I not a fan of feeding, just pick them up and place on a suitable flower in the sunshine. Often bees can get cold, not just in need of food, so putting them on a sunny plant can warm them enough.

 

[MrEd]

Nice!

Although this year, I could have done without all the free bees that settled in my apiary. Had more than enough hives as was and then more and more swarms seemed to be attracted to it.

Yeah tbh it’s a bit late for the queen to get sorted and laying her winter bees. I popped them in a nuc and fed them and will see how they do! Worst case scenario is I combine them with my smallest hive and snuff a queen

 

[MrEd]

I was hoping the swarm season was over. I've managed to not have any of my colonies swarm this year, well so far.

How are your other bees settling in? As clam as expected? Are you likely to requeen the swarm or keep them as is?

Yeah will snuff a queen, probably the swarm queen as she is unknown

My other hives are fine, all my mite treatments are done until I do an oxalic acid vape end of December. One semi-agressive hive but they have produced nearly 2 supers of honey this year

 

[slowworm]

How's everyone's colonies doing? As ever, it's been a funny old start to the year. A couple of weeks ago the NBU were sending out starvation alerts and after a couple of days sunshine most of mine need their 2nd super.

 

[SaraR]

How's everyone's colonies doing? As ever, it's been a funny old start to the year. A couple of weeks ago the NBU were sending out starvation alerts and after a couple of days sunshine most of mine need their 2nd super.

I lost two colonies over winter and one has gone quite small, but the others are looking ok. Not minding too much as wanted to reduce the numbers anyway.

I’m just worried now that they’ll try to swarm next week after this week’s warm weather and the rain tomorrow. One colony at my BKA apiary had charged queen cells yesterday.

 

[Machiavelli]

We had a nice prime swarm land in some of our equipment on Saturday. A lovely marked Buckfast queen that someone will definitely be missing.

It was a slow start to the season, but everything is kicking off now. We manage around 15 apiary sites, so rushing to get round them all before they swarm or backfill the brood boxes with honey.

 

[SaraR]

I’ve still not recovered fully from last year’s health issues and DH is currently ill and can’t do my bees for me, so I’ve just been up to put a super on the hive on double brood and given the other two that are on brood and a half another shallow box each, so they are now on brood and two halves…

I’m hoping it won’t be too hard to sort out in late June/July by moving one of the shallows up above the queen excluder, but we shall see.

One nuc has absconded in the last fortnight, so I’m down to a comfortable three hives now.

 

[SaraR]

View attachment 87773

We had a nice prime swarm land in some of our equipment on Saturday. A lovely marked Buckfast queen that someone will definitely be missing.

It was a slow start to the season, but everything is kicking off now. We manage around 15 apiary sites, so rushing to get round them all before they swarm or backfill the brood boxes with honey.

Nice one!

It’s been a superslow to start to the season here as well, but as of last weekend it’s game on.

 

[oldtimer]

Over the last week or so by using the glass and card method we've rescued dozens of bees which have got into our sitting room and then try to escape through a closed and unopenable window. Those we don't rescue die of exhaustion fairly quickly. We have worked out that they are coming down the chimney, into the woodburner where some, but not all, find a way out into the room. We have tried lighting a smoky fire in the stove but as soon as the fire went cold they were back. We suspect they are nesting in the chimney.

In the interests of the bees' welfare, and our sanity can any of you bee keepers suggest a way of getting rid of them?

 

[slowworm]

In the interests of the bees' welfare, and our sanity can any of you bee keepers suggest a way of getting rid of them?

Do you have a photo of a dead bee? Any answer might depend on one what bees you have.

 

[Woody girl]

My friend had bees in her chimney, also a woodburner. Very expensive quotes from the bee removal people, even if she could find someone willing to do it. The trouble is, you can't reach them to get the bees out. It's a big job. In the end, she just put up with them.
Try leaving a shallow saucer of sugar and water on the windowsill so exhausted bees can get a drink and energy boost untill you can rescue them and set them free.
It's a problem. Try the local beekeeping society for contacts for removal. They could " bee" a problem if they block the chimney, so it will need sorting, especially if it's a modern chimney. Luckily, my friends chimney was very large as it was in a very old house. (The sort that they'd send boys up to sweep in older times) so it wasn't too bad a problem as regards blocking the chimney, but the fireplace had been made smaller ,(so no access for small boys any longer.) Would have had to knock out the whole lower chimney and rebuild, on top of the bee removal fee. !
Good luck sorting it.

 

[oldtimer]

My friend had bees in her chimney, also a woodburner. Very expensive quotes from the bee removal people, even if she could find someone willing to do it. The trouble is, you can't reach them to get the bees out. It's a big job. In the end, she just put up with them.
Try leaving a shallow saucer of sugar and water on the windowsill so exhausted bees can get a drink and energy boost untill you can rescue them and set them free.
It's a problem. Try the local beekeeping society for contacts for removal. They could " bee" a problem if they block the chimney, so it will need sorting, especially if it's a modern chimney. Luckily, my friends chimney was very large as it was in a very old house. (The sort that they'd send boys up to sweep in older times) so it wasn't too bad a problem as regards blocking the chimney, but the fireplace had been made smaller ,(so no access for small boys any longer.) Would have had to knock out the whole lower chimney and rebuild, on top of the bee removal fee. !
Good luck sorting it.

Thanks for that. Unfortunately our grandson is now too big to send up the chimney.

 

[SaraR]

Over the last week or so by using the glass and card method we've rescued dozens of bees which have got into our sitting room and then try to escape through a closed and unopenable window. Those we don't rescue die of exhaustion fairly quickly. We have worked out that they are coming down the chimney, into the woodburner where some, but not all, find a way out into the room. We have tried lighting a smoky fire in the stove but as soon as the fire went cold they were back. We suspect they are nesting in the chimney.

In the interests of the bees' welfare, and our sanity can any of you bee keepers suggest a way of getting rid of them?

On a day with good weather and a forecast for nice settled weather, light a very smokey fire (colder smoke is better for the bees) in the middle of the day and drive them out. Have someone outside to spot that they’re going and where they end up if possible, so that they can be collected and given a proper home (or hope that they find a natural home somewhere).