I've just looked at the two nucs I split from a double brood colony a few weeks back. Both now have laying queens and I've been keeping an eye on their stores. I've just put a feeder on top of one with a super frame of stores from the original colony. (I do like the BS Honey Poly Nucs as I've found the design is very flexible such as being able to put a whole super frame in the feeder.).
What beekeeping related activities did you do recently?
- Thread starter slowworm
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I've just looked at the two nucs I split from a double brood colony a few weeks back. Both now have laying queens and I've been keeping an eye on their stores. I've just put a feeder on top of one with a super frame of stores from the original colony. (I do like the BS Honey Poly Nucs as I've found the design is very flexible such as being able to put a whole super frame in the feeder.).
I bought a BS box at Tradex this year, I've not needed to use it yet but I didn't know you could fit a whole frame in the feeder. Thanks!!
The last couple of weeks there's not been much nectar coming in so I've been keeping an eye on our colonies stores. Today they they seem to have found something providing nectar somewhere. Some rain will help.
A couple of other things worth mentioning. When I started keeping bees I tended to inspect them in late afternoon, probably that's when many keepers inspect if they're not at home during the day. Recently I've tried inspecting earlier, around midday and the bees seem more relaxed and less defensive.
I've also just started marking some of my queens this year and I've concluded there're not much easier to spot. Today I inspected a colony where the queen isn't marked but she is always on a frame when I inspect so I always see her. I've found in some other colonies the queen often seems to hide and even when marked she can be hard to spot.
A couple of other things worth mentioning. When I started keeping bees I tended to inspect them in late afternoon, probably that's when many keepers inspect if they're not at home during the day. Recently I've tried inspecting earlier, around midday and the bees seem more relaxed and less defensive.
I've also just started marking some of my queens this year and I've concluded there're not much easier to spot. Today I inspected a colony where the queen isn't marked but she is always on a frame when I inspect so I always see her. I've found in some other colonies the queen often seems to hide and even when marked she can be hard to spot.
My back yard doesn't get sprayed . The dandelions are the size of romaine lettuce with flowers, too. Have at it, bees.
I didn't prune the apple trees even by pink stage this year. I'll wait until after petal drop. Have at them, bees.
The grapes are slow, snow flurries expected almost every night I( a grunt, living in the mountains, sometimes).
Lots of die back to cut off and the bumble bees can do the rest.
Those are my bee to do things.
I didn't prune the apple trees even by pink stage this year. I'll wait until after petal drop. Have at them, bees.
The grapes are slow, snow flurries expected almost every night I( a grunt, living in the mountains, sometimes).
Lots of die back to cut off and the bumble bees can do the rest.
Those are my bee to do things.
Collected a swarm from a lovely back garden, nice prime swarm in a tree at chest height. Couldn’t have been easier!!
Relocated my 2 TBH's and cleaned them up. To my surprised I found a fresh and clean rate. Must've been built last year, but I suspect the bees left the hive, because the sewage ventilation pipes were to near.
Bad air, I think.
Bad air, I think.
The perfect hive inspection weather this morning managed to turn before I had a chance to get out to the apiary. So instead of a full inspection, I had a quick peak through the queen excluders and put another super on two of the hives. The bees looked active and content so I'm happy so far. 
Photo of hives before new supers going on:
Photo of hives before new supers going on:
How do you get on with top bar hives? I have the wood to make a couple of my own but not got round to it yet.
Interesting, so you run your hives 'warm way', i.e. frames parallel to the front. Have you always done that or tried 'cold way' at all?
We've always run cold way as that's what our local BKA apiary does but wandering about trying a hive or two the other way around.
I am not. Had 2 hives with populations, but both starved due to being weak and having a bad, dry season. They didn't make it through the following winter.
And since bees have become excessively expensive here I was not able to get new ones either.
Are you able to catch swarms where you are in Sweden? I guess if you were able to they would be wild swarms. In the UK we are much more densely populated and have more beekeepers in a smaller area so swarms are quite easy to come by. What would a colony of bees cost in Sweden? From a dealer here you would pay about £200 (2300SEK) ish for a nucleus colony with a known queen or possibly half that if you found a beekeeper selling one.
I hadn't realised you lived in Sweden @RonW Have you got any experience of trågkupor at all? I took up beekeeping after moving to Wales, so I only "know" British beekeeping so to speak, but they seem really interesting.
A split off with 10 frames and a queen is around 3000SEK. Complete hives I've seen being sold for anything between 4000 and 5000SEK
I am hoping for a swarm. We have been seeing exceptionally many bees, dark ones and yellow ones, in our garden this spring during the dandelion bloom. So there are populations nearby.
No, I haven't. I had only one opportunity to have a look at a pair some years ago. They are too big for my liking.
Are you able to buy a swarm lure (pheromone) in Sweden? If not I could send you some of my homemade swarm attractant FOC if you like? I've found it to work really well, I done a lot of research and testing to development it. It's in liquid form so I just put it on a piece of something absorbent and wrap it in cling film with a couple of pin holes in it. You only need a few drops. I also leave some old comb in the box to make it even more attractive and so the new queen can start laying straight away.
Caught our first swarm ever today. It was only a little one and perfectly situated, so it was as easy as you could have hoped for. Let's just hope the little ladies don't abscond now!
Let's just hope the little ladies don't abscond now!
Caught our first swarm ever today. It was only a little one and perfectly situated, so it was as easy as you could have hoped for.
Was it from you own hives or from somewhere else? The June gap seems to be over around here so hives are filling up again so I expect swarms are more likely that a few weeks ago.
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